Super Founders - Book Summary
Super Founders: What Data Reveals About Billion-Dollar Startups (Ali Tamaseb)
Summary, Notes & Highlights
I’ve got clearer sense of what sets billion-dollar companies apart - Angle Investing, Venture Capital, Fundraising and How to Build a Startup. Looking at data and by listening to successful founders and investors stories. Debunking myths about startup founders.
1. Top quotes
“The more open, vulnerable you are, the more they can help you. Because they already invested in you. They want you to succeed.”
“Use anecdotes so people remember you „LinkedIn for doctors“ „the Uber of the bus transportation industry”
2. What Entrepreneurship is all about
💡 Clear ideas, clear thoughts, clear strategies and execute on that clarity
As an entrepreneur you have to have a burning passion. A natural desire to build something. This should be your motivation not the money. Money is the result of your effort to produce a valuable product for the market. Many who started a billion dollar company didn’t retire with their millions. They started new venture because the love to build and the love the game.
First principal thinking: A good approach is to work with a startup team that has few expertise in an industry. Because they can look at the problem though different lenses. An can solve a problem form different angles. As an entrepreneur you have ask good question and never accept the status quo. E.g Elon musk, space x. We wanted to go to space. He figured out Buying rockets is expensive. So he build rockets himself. The extra cash could be then reinvest in others areas that supports his Vision, business
Identify a trend or market. Pick a customer segment your know better then others and find real problems they face
Validate early. Make sure your not working on a made up problem. Best way to know = Pre-Sale your product instead of just ask questions „if the want the product or not“
When building a company your have to think of the external and internal drivers of success. E.g. externally you have to bring the best board of directors to get the founding. It’s not who your know it’s your credibility
it’s important to pay the founders a salary so they can focus on the company
3. Angel Investors, Fundraising, Investing
Fundraiser, investing means giving up control. Your goal should be to profitable from day 1. you can grow at your own pace and later venture capital funding comes easy because your are established. e.g. Spanx - Billion Dollar Company Bootstrapped with 100% Ownership
Many angel investors build startups before. Seek Specific knowledge, network you need help with from a VC, Investor is more important than money
Angel Investor have many companies in which they invest. Most of them fail and a few success (the once you are likely to hear about)
Invest in great people. that what gets you going as an startup and impresses the venture capital, investor
4. How to get the most out of Investors and Board members
Just ask. You are the founder and have the best knowledge about your business. Give the investors, board members a clear problem and they will help you.
Early on you should Develop a mutual relationship with investors, board members. Talk about real problems, struggles, everything that’s not going well, instead of just how the company is doing. They should be the fist call if you wanna bounce of an idea.
5. Pitch Tips: How to WOW Investors, Venture Capitalists, Fundraising
Its more about a great team who shares the passion. It’s less about your perfect story or pitch deck. Make it simple. Think more on what you want the VC to remember and let the strength of your team speak for itself
Talk about why now it is a massive opportunity. Instead of your background, your story and how you came to that idea
Focus on deeply answer these questions:
The one reason why now is the best time to invest?
What is the one thing you are really solving?
For whom? Who is really the customer?
What is the key value proposition?
Reflect on:
what you truly want to achieve as an entrepreneur?
Put yourself in the investors shoes. Why should they invest? What are the risks?
The key for entrepreneurs is To Connect funding raising with concrete milestones while giving themselves enough cushions for errors and delays
You have inspire the investors. They have to believe in you. E.g if you gonna design a beautiful app and your pitch deck looks awful this says a lot about you
6. Why To Much or to Little Investing Ruins Your Company
💡 Just fund the appropriate amount of money.
To little might effect Team moral, employees leaving and corners have to be cut.
A „hot“ company might be funding more than it needs. Puts the company ahead where it acutely stands. Putting pressure on the company to hit certain milestones on the next funding round
Raise to much could distract Management Team from understanding the real issue, solving the problem and hurt future growth. Because resources might be allocated to every project or idea.
7. Mindset: What Data Tells us about How to build a Company
your age at which you start a company doesn’t matter. 17 or 70
Starting a company with a Co-Founders is not worn out better then solo founders. Accelerated programs just focus on finding a co-founder but this could back fire. Because you have to find one which you might not be compatible with
Starting a company with equal amount ratio of tech expert vs business expert as CEOs doesn’t effect the success of the company. You can start a tech company with no tech skills as ceo and still build a valuable company. hire the right people. Any other combination also is possible
It’s more important to have unbiased option about the industry your trying to disrupt, leadership skills, manage a team, found money, hire the right people rather than having a specific skill
You don’t build your billion dollar company with the first company. Many build their billion dollar company after they launched many different companies and took their expertise, knowledge, network of people with it into the new one.
Decide if your company does B2C or B2B business. Focusing on both strategies leads mostly to failure. Because they very different approaches in terms of marketing, insisting etc.
Most successful companies enter the market with an already solved problem an other competitors. They just attack the Problem different. Bring new Perspective. Make the product better. Improve it for the customers etc.
8. How Zoom becomes a billion dollar company
At the start of the company there where already several big players in the video communication market. But the founder of Zoom purely focused customers and their feedback. He want to build an easy to use Video Call Tool. He did not cared about what the competitors did. He keep the company lean. No marketing just word of mouth and direct customer feedback. Later slowly add Sales, customer success etc.