Great founders actually build.

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

So this question is: what are the biggest red flags for startup founders that you've interviewed?

There are many, many things that I look for in interviews, but one of the most important things I look for is the ability for the team to build the product themselves. Are they technical? Are they engineers? Are they scientists? Can they prototype this product? Is the demo built by them themselves?

The red flag that I look for is explanations that don't involve, "We're going to build it ourselves." Examples of that might be: we have hired an agency to do it for us, or we have hired outsourced engineers, someone else that is going to do it for us. Or, "We don't really need to build it because it's not needed to prove out this startup idea." Or, "Are we using some no-code solutions?"

That might be interesting, but at the end of the day, it probably isn't going to scale. All of these ideas are ignoring the fact that great startups are built by founders who can build prototypes themselves. That's what I look for, and all the things I mentioned are red flags to me.

Miami Is Sinking | Explorer

Finding decreasing interval given the function | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

View All

Why Suffering is Beautiful | Emil Cioran’s Dark Philosophy

Romanian philosopher Emil Cioran observed that we live in a society that’s too afraid to confront the dark sides of existence. For example, we prefer to hide illness behind the thick walls of hospitals, and we avoid discussing death, as we see it as somet…

Confronting Kevin O’Leary | How He Spends $400 Million Dollars

By the end of the year, I’m writing off millions of dollars. That’s a mistake. I make money selling potatoes with people’s pictures on them. It’s a huge hit. You’re dead to me, and you are because I’m out. What’s up, you guys? It’s Graham here. So, as so…

HACK YOUTUBE COMMENTS ... and other pranks! -- Up All Knight #4

Vsauce! On Wednesday, a lot of you guys were asking for a new episode of Up All Night, our technical pranks and curiosities show. Unfortunately, these guys are still on vacation, but I’m going to try to do this alone. Let’s go to begin. You can break int…

How to Build RELIABLE Passive Income for 2022

So back when I was at uni, four or five years ago, I remember having this moment where one day I searched for physiotherapy jobs in my city. It was at that exact moment of my life I realized I was never really going to make all that much money as a physio…

Gordon Ramsay Learns to Spearfish | Gordon Ramsay: Uncharted

Spear fishing in Hawaii, I’m like a fish out of water. Thank God I’ve got free diving champ Kimi for a guide. She makes it look so easy. [Music] Damn, she’s good. [Music] Despite my fetching camouflage, I can’t hit a thing. Don’t get frustrated! Oh man, …

Worked example: sequence explicit formula | Series | AP Calculus BC | Khan Academy

If a_sub_n is equal to (n^2 - 10) / (n + 1), determine a_sub_4 + a_sub_9. Well, let’s just think about each of these independently. a_sub_4, let me write it this way: a the fourth term. So a_sub_4, so our n, our lowercase n, is going to be four. It’s go…

Great founders actually build.

More Articles