AI startups need to reread Paul Graham's "13 Things About Starting a Startup"
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AI startups need to reread Paul Graham's "13 Things About Starting a Startup"
Two entrepreneurs combined their entrepreneurial experience and the current environment to analyze 13 entrepreneurial principles one by one.
Navigating Web3 tides with focused insightsPaul Graham's "Startups in 13 Sentences" is widely known and has become essential reading for anyone starting a company.
"The success or failure of a startup depends almost entirely on the founding team."
"You don't really start working until you launch. Launching shows you what you should actually be doing. Before that, you're just wasting time."
"Understanding users is the core. The essence of startups is 'creating value': the dimension of value you can control most directly is how much your product improves users' lives. The hardest part is knowing what to do for them. Once you figure that out, building the product becomes merely a matter of effort—something most great developers can handle."
Although published in 2009, its core ideas remain relevant today—a piece founders can reread every year.
Two founders, Chris Saad and Yaniv Bernstein, break down Paul Graham’s 13 startup principles through dialogue, combining their entrepreneurial experience with today’s startup landscape.
"A successful startup is essentially a counterintuitive exploration."
01 Choose the right co-founder,early investment is betting on founders
Yaniv: Paul Graham wrote: 'The importance of a co-founder to a startup is like location to real estate. You can change any attribute of a house except its location; you can easily adjust a startup’s idea, but replacing a co-founder is nearly impossible. And the success or failure of a startup depends almost entirely on the founding team.'
In Australia, you actually *can* move houses—haul them away by truck—but it’s such a messy process that no one wants to go there. Let’s talk about what this principle really means.
Chris: I just discussed this with an investor. I believe early-stage investing is fundamentally about betting on founders. If you’re starting a company, your first and most important decision is choosing who your co-founder will be.
There’s a saying in filmmaking: 'Half of directing is casting.' It’s the same with startups—the core of managing a startup is selecting the right team. Yes, 'people are the most important asset' sounds cliché, but it’s absolutely true, especially in startups. The impact is amplified, the journey full of challenges—emotional stress, tactical problems, strategic decisions—you need truly exceptional partners: aligned goals, resilience, focus, and commitment. Your early (and even later) success often hinges on who your 'comrades in arms' are.
Yaniv: Absolutely. There’s a consensus that 'investors bet on the founding team,' and for founders, the equivalent 'bet' is finding the right co-founder. But from my own experience, founders aren’t isolated individuals—you can’t say 'Founder A is great, Founder B is great, so this must be a great team.'
A team is a 'nonlinear system': a good team’s value far exceeds the sum of its parts; a bad team does the opposite. So when choosing a co-founder, consider 'relative fit': Are skills complementary? Are core goals aligned? Can you share indivisible resources like decision-making power and revenue? More importantly, can your relationship last? Will you stand together under pressure?
Startups always hit rough patches. When things get tough, will your co-founder fight alongside you? Can the relationship survive—or will it shatter completely? Data confirms it: founder breakup is a common reason for startup failure. Anyone in the startup world knows how common this is—most startups lose a founder along the way.
If you can build a resilient, cohesive, skill-complementary team where each member shines individually and even more so together, you gain a decisive advantage. To me, that’s what 'choosing the right co-founder' really means.
Chris: I think most startup failures ultimately trace back to founder issues. Paul said, 'Ideas are easy to change; changing founders is hard'—and he’s absolutely right.
02 Launch fast,everything before launch is wasted time
Yaniv: Paul Graham wrote: 'The core of launching fast isn’t just about getting to market early—it’s that “you don’t really start working until you launch.” Launching tells you what you *should* be doing. Before that, you’re just wasting time. So no matter what you launch, the key value is enabling contact with users.'
Chris: We’ve talked many times about 'minimum viable product (MVP)' and 'minimum viable iteration'—the core is 'launch-learn-iterate.' There’s a famous quote: 'Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face.' I often say: 'Until your product meets real users, all your efforts are theoretical.'
What Paul means is: launching fast isn’t just about creating value early or gaining first-mover advantage—it’s primarily about understanding how users interact with your product. Do people care? Does it create real value? If not, why? How should you adapt? What did you learn? The faster you launch and iterate, the faster you grow.
Yaniv: Chris, I’m currently raising pre-seed funding—just before recording this podcast, I had some tough conversations with investors. They keep asking, 'I still don’t get what your product actually is' or 'Show me your roadmap.' That doesn’t make sense because in early fundraising, the honest answer is 'I don’t yet know what the final product will be.' I need to build and launch a version, see how the market reacts, then iterate continuously.
Investors should ask: 'How will you get to market quickly? How will you iterate fast?' Thankfully, a few great investors have joined our 'Violet project'—they only ask one question: 'How do you plan to get to market quickly?'
These investors understand Silicon Valley-style startup logic. Paul articulates this point better than anyone—he earned his title as the 'godfather of Silicon Valley startups' for a reason. The core principle is: let go of 'false precision' and 'illusion of control.' Don’t think 'if I think deeply enough, research thoroughly, and build perfect Excel models, I can control everything.'
You must 'bow to reality': the ocean is stronger than you—go with the flow. Jump into the water and see where the current takes you, instead of pretending you’re in control. There’s deep wisdom here.
Chris: Many people come from academia, agencies (used to 'one-time big deliverables'), or large enterprises with 'waterfall development' (must 'get it right the first time'—or risk getting fired), or straight from school (where you submit a thesis only once and it must be perfect). They’re used to 'getting it right once,' but startups require a 'launch-learn-iterate-repeat' cycle.
03 Let ideas evolve:Strong opinions, loosely held
Yaniv: Paul’s third principle: let ideas evolve. This is the second half of 'launch fast': launch fast, iterate continuously. Treating a startup as merely 'executing a brilliant initial idea' is a fundamental mistake. Like writing—an essay’s best insights often emerge during the writing process—great startup ideas often arise during execution.
Chris: We already touched on this, but let’s add another popular and important concept: 'Fall in love with the problem, not the solution.'
Many people think: 'I want to help someone go from point A to B—I imagine the solution is a Ferrari, so I’ll build a Ferrari, that’ll be amazing.' But most people might actually need a Toyota Corolla—or even an e-scooter. What exactly they need (airplane, jet, propeller plane) depends on which specific aspect of the A-to-B problem you’re solving.
So obsess over 'solving the A-to-B problem,' but stay flexible on 'how to deliver the solution.' As product maturity, market readiness, budget, and funding availability change, your solution should evolve accordingly. The basis for iteration includes not only user feedback mentioned earlier but also changes over time, market dynamics, and your own roadmap.
Yaniv: I recall another quote (not from this article, but highly relevant): 'Have strong opinions, loosely held.'
At any moment, you should have clear, strong beliefs about what you’re doing. Honestly, I feel this daily—if based on current knowledge you don’t believe you’re doing the 'right thing,' you’ll easily get distracted and end up achieving nothing.
But once your product hits the market, you must listen. The market might tell you 'your idea is wrong.' So your attitude must be flexible—don’t stubbornly say, 'I hear the market, but you don’t understand—I have a three-year roadmap agreed with investors, I’ll stick to the plan.'
That would be foolish. You must be able to adjust, stay 'elastic,' and let your ideas evolve with market feedback. And note: Paul uses 'evolve,' not 'revolution.' When your product idea proves unworkable, you don’t need to scrap everything—you update existing beliefs: 'With new information, my idea was wrong, now I need to adjust.'
I think this is crucial. Many misunderstand 'pivot' and 'lean startup' as 'scrapping and restarting every time,' but it’s really about 'iterative optimization.' At its core, it’s about 'learning'—only by bringing your product to market and listening can you learn anything.
04 Understand users:solve user problems before growth
Chris: The fourth principle is 'understand users.' Paul wrote: 'Imagine the value a startup creates as a rectangle—one side is number of users, the other is “how much the product improves users’ lives.” The latter is the dimension you can control most directly, and growth in the former depends precisely on your performance in the latter.'
"Like scientific research, the challenge isn’t answering questions—it’s asking them. The hard part is discovering unmet user needs. The deeper your understanding of users, the greater your chance of doing this. That’s why many successful startups initially built products they themselves needed."
Yaniv: Paul’s 'rectangle' metaphor can be simplified: don’t fixate solely on 'growth' and 'user numbers'—focus on 'building a product users truly love.' The only way to achieve this is by genuinely understanding users. You can’t accidentally build a beloved product—it requires nuanced insight.
The path to 'user growth' is 'building a product users love.' This aligns perfectly with Paul’s style—the core is 'delivering massive value.' To do this, you must listen to, understand, empathize with users, uncover the precise nature of their pain points, then design a perfect solution.
Do this well, and growth follows naturally. If you prioritize growth over 'delivering value' and 'understanding users,' it’s like 'drinking sugary water for energy'—growth is easy, but unsustainable and fails to capture real value because you’re not delivering much value. So the top priority is: understand users, deliver massive value for them.
Chris: I deeply resonate with this. In consulting, I meet many founders obsessed solely with 'growth.' You say 'growth is easy,' but 'understanding core user needs' is hard. If your product doesn’t solve user problems, what’s the point of growth? It’s like 'trying to run before learning to walk—or trying to run before growing legs'—it makes no sense.
You should grow a product with real utility. Without understanding users, you won’t grasp their pain points; without understanding pain points, you can’t build valuable products; without value, there’s no real growth. You can spend money on ads to attract users—they might glance at your product for half a second and leave. That’s not growth—it’s 'brief, ineffective traffic.'
First, understand users, solve their pain points, build a valuable product—then pursue growth, then monetization. I’ve met too many founders saying, 'Chris, we want to launch subscription billing.' I ask, 'Great—what monthly value do you create for users?' They reply, 'What do you mean monthly value? We think users might sign up for a forum...' Stop that! Understand users, solve their problems—everything else follows naturally.
Yaniv: But Chris, we must understand why resisting 'growth obsession' is so hard—because growth-related metrics are more attractive and easier to communicate. For example, saying 'last month user count grew 20% compared to the previous two months'—even if achieved artificially via ads—lets you tell a clear story to investors and yourself.
But if you say 'our product is 20% more useful than last month, though we still only have 5 users,' it sounds like 'still playing small.' This brings us back to the original question: Why is entrepreneurship so compelling? Why are we still doing this podcast after 250+ episodes? Why is Paul so charismatic?
Because many highlights of entrepreneurship defy intuition—they contradict not only your instincts but established norms, often even human nature. This principle is classic: you want to 'build a big company, make a big impact,' but reality says 'learn to walk before running,' where 'walking' means 'deliver massive value to a small group of users.'
Chris: Startup logic also contradicts all other business models (large enterprises, agencies, small businesses)—models already ingrained in our lives: watching parents run small businesses, learning 'industrial-era value creation' in school (writing papers, completing assignments), experiencing bureaucracy in large companies... Few have truly experienced 'the startup as a flexible organism.'
So whether judged by human nature, past experience, or cultural environment, people’s intuitive sense of 'how to do startups' is wrong.
Yaniv: Startups are 'business,' but not traditional 'business'—this reminds me of episode one, over 250 episodes ago, where we discussed 'small business mindset traps.'
05 Narrow your target users:first make a few users 'obsessively love' you
Yaniv: Paul Graham wrote: 'Ideally, you want many users to love you, but don’t expect that from day one. Early on, you have only two choices: satisfy all needs of a subset of potential users, or satisfy part of the needs of all potential users—choose the former. From both scale and satisfaction perspectives, the former is easier to expand. More importantly, the former prevents self-deception.'
'For example, if you think “the product is only 15% away from greatness,” how do you know it’s not 30% or even 90%? Meanwhile, “number of users” is easy to measure. This principle is similar to the previous one—the core is “don’t superficially serve many users while fooling yourself that ‘they all get value, so it’s enough.’ If you haven’t fully solved a segment’s pain points, you haven’t made real progress.”'
Chris: The previous principle was 'understand users,' this one is 'narrow your focus.' Saying 'build a great product for women' isn’t realistic—women globally are too diverse, with vastly different needs and pain points.
You must narrow your audience to the extreme: e.g., 'affluent women aged 18–25 in California who want more comfortable running shoes and jog every morning.' The scope should make you uncomfortable, even embarrassed: 'Wow, such a tiny group—how can this be a business?' This is exactly what Peter Thiel meant by 'monopolizing a niche.'
Make those Californian morning-jogging women die-hard fans of your running shoes, so they proactively recommend them within their circle. Then others follow: 'Cool girls wear these—I need a pair even if I don’t jog.' Then you expand—'women who walk daily,' 'followers,' 'luxury seekers.'
You must first monopolize a niche, then gradually expand your 'minimum viable user group.' Conversely, if you build a 'generic shoe indistinguishable from others,' no one will care, and no one’s pain points will be solved. So Paul’s advice is clear: find your niche, focus on serving them.
06 Deliver customer service that 'exceeds expectations','unsustainable at scale' is actually a startup’s advantage
Chris: The sixth principle is 'deliver customer service that exceeds expectations.' Paul wrote: 'Users are accustomed to being treated poorly—most companies they deal with are quasi-monopolies, indifferent even to outrageous service failures. Your unconscious perception of 'service ceiling' gets lowered by these experiences.'
'Try making your service not just “good” but “exceeds expectations”: proactively invest effort to genuinely delight users—they’ll be deeply moved. In early stages, offering “unsustainable-at-scale” service is worthwhile—it’s a great way to understand users.'
Yaniv: I strongly agree, though there’s a slight contradiction in Paul’s wording: he says 'big companies have poor service due to quasi-monopoly,' but later admits 'top-tier service is often hard to scale.' For early startups, 'unsustainable-at-scale' is actually your advantage.
Early on, many things disadvantage you due to 'lack of scale'—no resources, funding, users, brand... But you can do things big companies can’t—like elite customer service. Founders should personally handle support whenever possible. I’ve experienced this: if a startup founder directly emails me with feedback or answers my questions, I’m pleasantly surprised—even shocked (in a good way): 'Wow, the founder personally reached out—they truly care about the product, understand it, and value my input.'
Even if the product has minor flaws, I’ll forgive them. As Paul says, this kind of service builds immense loyalty—and no big company can replicate it. Not just quasi-monopolies—all large companies fail to scale 'extreme service.' So seize this 'big companies can’t do' advantage—don’t waste it.
Chris: I’d slightly expand on Paul’s view: for Silicon Valley-style 'software-driven startups,' the core is 'defying user expectations'—using 'user-centric' thinking and software to re-engineer products from first principles, completely overturning 'mediocre experiences.'
So it’s not just service that should exceed expectations—product itself, utility, onboarding experience (e.g., opening a new bank account, ChatGPT signup, ad platform usage) should all surpass user expectations, because these companies design from 'first principles' combining software and user thinking. Most current companies are 'annoying monopolies'—their experience can’t compare.
Second, this is another 'counterintuitive' example: after working in big companies, you assume 'everyone wants to partner with big firms,' habitually refer to 'we' ('Our Corp Group does it this way'), and fear exposing that 'the company is just two founders working from a garage,' so you try hard to appear 'big.'
But startups are the opposite: users want to know your startup story, who’s behind it, that you’re putting heart into solving problems—this differs completely from 'corporate officialdom.'
Finally, regarding 'doing unscaleable customer service,' this connects to another commonly misunderstood Paul Graham idea: 'do things that don’t scale.' Many misinterpret it—e.g., 'Chris, I’m doing consulting now because Paul said “it’s okay to do unscaleable things.”'
But Paul’s real meaning is: 'Do unscaleable service to support your *scaleable product*.' Like Airbnb’s classic case: early on, sending photographers to list properties (unscaleable), but eventually building a 'short-term rental marketplace' (scaleable).
So the core is 'using unscaleable actions to pave the way for scaleable products/platforms/businesses'—not 'randomly doing unscaleable things.' This distinction is vital.
Yaniv: There’s another reason to do 'unscaleable things' (especially customer service): it’s a form of 'user discovery.' Isn’t the previous principle about 'deeply understanding users'? Personally handling support is a great way to understand users.
Chris: But there’s a pitfall: many inexperienced founders (e.g., without Y Combinator experience or Paul Graham mentorship) fall into 'over-developing for individual users.' So judgment is needed: listen to users, learn from feedback, but don’t 'over-focus on single users'—it’s a real craft.
07 Choosing the right metrics matters,timing matters too
Yaniv: 'What you measure is what you build.' Paul wrote: 'Measuring something has a magical “improvement effect”—for example, if you want to grow users, put up a big whiteboard, track user count daily. When numbers rise, you’re happy; when they fall, you’re sad. Soon you’ll discover “what actions make numbers rise” and naturally do more of those.' 'But beware: choosing the right metric matters.'
Chris: That’s why focusing only on revenue is dangerous. If your core metric is revenue, the fastest way to boost it is 'custom enterprise deployments'—sell large enterprise contracts, build bespoke software meeting all their unique needs. Revenue grows, maybe even reaches breakeven—seems great, but this model doesn’t scale.
Metrics you should actually track: active users, customer acquisition cost (CAC), customer lifetime value (LTV), retention rate, cost of revenue, and the company’s 'scalability potential.'
Here’s a critical but rarely mentioned point: earlier principles mention 'doing unscaleable things, deeply serving users,' but remember to do them 'for free.' If you charge users (e.g., consulting fees, non-recurring engineering), they become 'paying customers,' not 'test subjects' for validating your product—you’ll become dependent on this 'non-scalable revenue' and never escape.
So track 'metrics with scalability potential': early on, focus on 'active users,' 'retention'; later, shift to 'revenue,' 'LTV,' 'ROI.' The key is 'timing.'
Yaniv: My feelings about this principle are complex because Paul ends with 'mind your metrics,' reminding me of my favorite 'Goodhart’s Law': 'When a metric becomes a target, it ceases to be a good metric.'
It’s similar to KPI problems: once a metric becomes a KPI, people will game it—doing things beneficial to the number but harmful to the business. For example, wanting to boost 'product usage,' you set 'user count' as the metric—someone might then redefine 'user' to include 'people who accidentally clicked a notification.'
At Google, Google+ had this issue: to 'boost active users,' they embedded Google+ everywhere irrelevant (e.g., notification trays). Users accidentally clicked notifications and were counted as 'Google+ active users'—absurd.
So beware: most metrics are merely 'proxies' for what you truly care about—not the thing itself. Over-focusing on metrics weakens their link to core goals.
So the conclusion: measure metrics, focus on important ones, work to improve them, but don’t 'overdo it'—return to first principles, clarify 'what problem you’re truly solving,' and recognize 'metrics are imperfect proxies.'
Chris: I’ve told this story on the podcast, but it comes to mind again: at Uber, I attended a business review with people hostile to our business, constantly harping on 'data isn’t growing' and demanding 'increase first-order volume.'
I tried patiently explaining: 'The developer platform isn’t central to boosting first orders—there are better metrics and methods,' but they fixated on 'first-order numbers' and said, 'Chris, that’s our OKR—we must hit this number.' Finally, I blurted out: 'I don’t care about these numbers at all.'
Yaniv: So that’s why you’re not at Uber anymore.
Chris: Right, the whole room went silent. At Uber, saying 'I don’t care about data, numbers' was practically heresy. But the issue was: they claimed to 'think from first principles' but didn’t—this number itself was wrong.
I don’t care who set the OKR or how much they love it—I operate with 'founder mindset': I’m not here to 'protect OKRs' but to 'drive real business growth.' So you need principles, and your team must consist of 'principled people' who know 'when numbers don’t matter.'
08 Focus on 'capital efficiency'
Chris: Paul wrote: 'I must emphasize how crucial it is for startups to “operate cheaply.” Most startups fail because “they ran out of money before building something users wanted”—running out of cash is the most common cause of failure.'
'"Operating cheaply" is almost synonymous with "rapid iteration," but goes further: a "frugal culture" keeps the company "young," like exercise keeps a person young.'
He means: 'Cheap operations keep the company agile and flexible, providing more "runway" to experiment, learn, and iterate.'
Yaniv: Am I 'challenging' Paul again? Recently I posted on LinkedIn: 'Be frugal, not cheap.' What’s the difference?
'Cheap' means 'not spending when you should'—failing to spend despite huge potential returns, obsessing only over 'spending as little as possible.' Returning to earlier points: if your KPI is 'spend as little as possible,' you’ll only focus on 'not spending,' ignoring the true purpose of spending—this contradicts Paul’s actual message.
I’m not truly challenging him—I just think: 'Spending every dollar wisely extends runway, giving more chances to iterate—that’s the key. That’s frugality.' The core is 'making every dollar meaningful,' not 'merely spending as little as possible.'
Chris: I prefer the term 'efficiency'—'capital efficiency': for every dollar spent, maximize return. Sometimes you must spend more: hire top talent who can 'accelerate the business,' invest in ads that 'open markets,' buy software that 'saves more time and money than building in-house.'
'Frugality' sometimes carries negative connotations, so 'capital efficiency' is more accurate. We mean the same thing: spend wisely, pursue results, move fast.
09 Achieve 'ramen profitability'
Yaniv: 'Achieving ramen profitability' means a startup’s revenue just covers the founders’ living expenses.
Paul said: 'This isn’t about “rapid business model testing” (though it helps), but more like “hacking the fundraising process.” Once you achieve ramen profitability, your relationship with investors fundamentally changes, and team morale improves significantly.'
Chris: This is especially relevant for early-stage startups—small teams (maybe just a few founders), no need for dedicated support staff, no complex infrastructure, able to learn and iterate rapidly through a 'lean, agile' model.
But as the company grows, you need 'upfront investment' (this is where VCs come in). Ideally, you should maintain the ability to operate lean—even if necessary, cut non-core functions and keep running.
And yes, 'not needing money' genuinely changes your investor relationship. Yaniv, before recording we discussed 'daring to tell investors “you’re wrong,” daring to walk out saying “sorry, we’re not a fit.”' When you desperately need investor money, it’s hard to do this; but if you don’t need money, your position improves dramatically.
But I must caution: VC’s core logic is 'upfront investment'—funding before profitability or breakeven. So the timing of 'ramen profitability' is critical—not applicable at all stages. Unless you’ve gone through Y Combinator, it’s hard to get this balance right.
Yaniv: Chris, let me rephrase: this principle better suits 'early founders,' especially 'young founders with low life burdens'—no spouse, no kids, able to live on ramen. But if you have a three-year-old, you can’t feed them ramen every day. So your point about 'timing' is crucial.
Yaniv: What’s the core value of 'ramen profitability'? As Paul said, it fundamentally changes your investor relationship—why? Because it gives you 'the courage to walk away.'
So I’d rather say: 'Put yourself in a position to say no to investors.' How to do this depends on your life stage:
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When young, you may lack money but have time and no burdens—so the 'ultra-frugal model covering personal expenses with product revenue' makes perfect sense.
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Later in life (this might sound like 'toxic鸡汤', not everyone can do this), if you want to start a company, ideally save some personal funds. With life experience, you likely can save—then your 'courage to reject investors' comes from 'self-funding ability.' You don’t need to lower your standard to 'eating ramen'—you can say: 'I have 12 to 18 months of personal funds to invest—even without external funding, I can sustain myself.'
Of course, self-funding has downsides, but like ramen profitability, it gives you 'the courage to reject investors.' First, it helps avoid the mistake of partnering with mismatched investors.
More importantly, anyone who’s negotiated (or even hasn’t) knows: 'The strongest negotiating card is genuinely being willing to walk away.' The less desperate you are for money, the easier it becomes to raise funds. So no matter your life stage, strive to make yourself 'not desperate'—that’s the core logic behind Paul Graham’s statement.
Chris: This reminds me of something—maybe slightly off-topic: one of the sharpest criticisms of Y Combinator is that it’s like a 'factory line,' exploiting young, driven founders who can endure hardship, making them work hard so Paul Graham and YC profit immensely.
I think this is somewhat unfair—YC has given many young people opportunities, even helping some become millionaires. But it’s undeniable there’s a 'factory-line' aspect, with tight schedules.
Also: when young, your advantages are 'low living costs, few burdens, high energy, ability to grind'; when older, these shift to 'greater focus, more experience, broader networks.' So as you said, leverage your stage-specific advantages. Paul’s 'ramen profitability' view implicitly reflects YC’s strategy—finding 'young people who can endure ramen for long periods.'
Yaniv: Exactly—as you age, your 'forms of capital' change. Leverage these capitals, don’t let yourself be fully dependent on investors—that’s the core message I take from this.
10 Focus on core problems,actively create a 'low-distraction environment'
Chris: The tenth principle: 'avoid distractions.' Paul wrote: 'Nothing destroys startups faster than distractions. The worst distractions are “profitable activities”—side jobs, consulting, profitable side ventures.'
Paul also said: 'Startups may have greater long-term potential, but you’ll constantly interrupt core work for “quick money”—like taking a consulting call. Ironically, fundraising is also such a distraction, so minimize it too.'
He refers to 'external distractions'—many founders busy building communities, engaging in startup ecosystems, hosting events, being active on LinkedIn, doing things unrelated to core business.
But I think 'internal distractions' are equally dangerous, and harder to detect: 'dividing attention on backup plans,' 'pursuing multiple goals simultaneously,' 'treating 17 things as priorities,' and 'clients who pay you well but lead you astray.'
So avoiding distractions is ultimately about 'focus'—we’ve discussed this countless times, but it can’t be overstated.
Yaniv: Good addition—distractions aren’t just external, they come in many forms. The core task of a startup is 'understand user pain points, rapidly iterate solutions, then scale'—and 'do unscaleable things to pave the way for future scaling.' All require intense focus.
But the world, society, even human nature, all 'fight against focus'—so many things pull your attention. So sometimes you need to 'design your lifestyle': if you want fewer distractions, actively create a 'low-distraction environment.' That’s what Paul means.
To succeed at startups, reduce things that pull you from the core—your focus *will* be tested, and the only way through is 'maintaining sufficient focus for long periods' until you build a product that truly solves user problems—*then* you can discuss scaling.
11 Don’t get discouraged, don’t give up,accept 'deals falling through'
Chris: I’ll group the last three because they’re essentially the same: first 'don’t get discouraged,' second 'don’t give up even if discouraged,' third 'accept deals falling through'—which may be why you feel 'discouraged' or 'want to quit.'
Core message: 'Keep going.' Even if faced with a brick wall, push through and keep moving. You never know when a breakthrough will come. Startup success ultimately depends on this persistence and resilience.
Yaniv: You said 'push through the wall,' but I feel it’s more like 'desperately holding on.' Everyone says 'startups are like roller coasters'—so true. On the same day, you might feel 'I’m the best in the world' one moment, then 'I’m worthless' the next—and this repeats day after day.
So feeling bad easily leads to fatigue and discouragement—these negative emotions cling to you. Human 'loss aversion' makes 'failures feel stronger than successes'—after repeated failures, you might want to quit.
I’m currently fundraising—too familiar with how common 'rejection' and 'deals falling through' are. We often say: 'Don’t celebrate too early—nothing’s final until signed.' And remember: 'A failed deal isn’t personal rejection.' Even if it’s somewhat a judgment on your company, it doesn’t mean 'the rejecting party is necessarily right.'
So keep your head up, hold on fiercely, remember why you started. If Paul’s 13 'slightly outdated' pieces of advice aren’t enough, you need someone to 'deeply engage with your company, guide you through the roller coaster.'
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