Go with what you can get started on most quickly. And get that first user.

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

Here's a question: I have lots of startup ideas. How do I choose the one to work on?

Uh, common problem. There's too many choices; there's lots of choices in the world. You don't know what to focus on.

You know, there's different algorithms you can use. One is, what's the one you could get started with most quickly? What's the one you could get a first customer with most quickly?

A lot of ideas you can kind of filter out just because they're impossible to get started with. Like say, oh, I want to build a space exploration company but I don't know anyone and I don't have any money.

Um, that's going to be hard. And so, to the extent there's ideas that you can choose that are much easier to get going with, I would recommend that.

And even if you're not sure you will stick with something, I would just recommend forcing yourself to launch and get at least one user.

Um, because then you could see you completed the full rep. I see too many folks start an idea and abandon it before even getting a single user, and I wouldn't really recommend that.

The key to growth? Race with the machines - Erik Brynjolfsson

300th Video Giveaway

View All

The Art of the Podcast, with Reply All's P.J. Vogt | Big Think

I think that anybody can learn how to do it. I think that a lot of the things that people hear about podcasts that they love sound like innate talents, and they’re actually just learned skills, you know. Like reporting certainly is something you learn. In…

The journey across the high wire - Philippe Petit

This sound, this smell, this sight all remind me of the campfires of my childhood, when anyone could become a storyteller in front of the dancing flames. There was this wondrous ending when people and fire would fall asleep almost in unison. It was dreami…

How America's Comedians Became More Intellectual than Many of Its Politicians | A.O. Scott

I feel like if you want to see anti-intellectualism on full display, you can watch some presidential debates. I mean, you can certainly look at our political discourse, some of it anyway, and see well thought and intellect is not held in the highest value…

Worked example: finite geometric series (sigma notation) | High School Math | Khan Academy

Let’s take, let’s do some examples where we’re finding the sums of finite geometric series, and let’s just remind ourselves in a previous video we derived the formula where the sum of the first n terms is equal to our first term times 1 minus our common r…

What skills you need to sell private jets.

Everybody asks what kind of skill sets they need to get into selling jets and how they can get into this business. First of all, you have to have passion for aviation. You have to really have it in your blood, as far as I’m concerned. Really, watching ai…

How NASA Reinvented The Wheel

This metal is about as close to magic as it is possible to find in nature. I just don’t get it. It can adjust its arrangement of atoms to return to some predefined shape, but it also converts between mechanical and thermal energy. And it can stretch up to…

Go with what you can get started on most quickly. And get that first user.

More Articles