A 20-min Medium Experiment.

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Medium looks so good, it makes you feel like an idea needs to be polished.

Well thought out. Well Written.

But that’s not how I think.

I’ve got half baked ideas that I want to share.

Raw ideas & Bad Grammar.

So let‘s type for 20 minutes & push the publish button.

I asked.

She answered.

The lean startup is an important framework for founders.

It helps founders increase the odds of success.

What is the equivalent for startup investors (early stage)?

What framework helps them be ‘right’ more often?

If YC is the framework (as Saku suggests) what would the core tenants be?

Let’s start with Lean Startup, then try to make a bridge.

Lean Startup

1. Don’t build on faith. Your vision is a hypothesis, test it.

MVPs

2. Build-Measure-Learn. Don’t Build-Build-Build. Go through the loop as fast as you can.

Validated learning

3. Measure your user growth like an accounting firm measures revenue growth.

Innovation accounting

Lean Investing

1. Investors are always a combo of help+money. At the early stage, go heavy on help, light on cash

($120k per startup. Previously $7k/founder)

2. It’s more about the people, and less about the idea. What’s the best way to judge talent/character?

(jessica livingston, human x-ray)

3. All the returns come from a handful of winners. Big winners don’t start out looking like big winners. They are ugly ducklings. Fund ideas that look like bad ideas on the surface.

(eg. AirBnB, Dropbox)

20 mins is up. You be my editor.

Highlight what I got right, Comment on what I got wrong.