Venture Hacks

We’ve updated the presentation in A quick and dirty guide to starting up. The new presentation includes the notes that accompany each slide.
I’ve also included the new presentation below. Watch it in full screen mode for maximum pleasure. The full screen button is at the bottom right of the embed and it looks like this: [...]

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Naval recently presented A Quick and Dirty Guide to Starting Up to Girls In Tech:

(Slides: A Quick and Dirty Guide to Starting Up (pdf))
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the presentation:
“We are faced with insurmountable opportunities.” – Pogo
The most important thing: idea intelligence connections experience determination.
Ideas, and therefore NDAs, are worthless.
“… as in [...]

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“As for the advice? Lots to choose from. Think big, or maybe small.”
— John Abell, on Startup School 08
Advice is for learning, not copying. Don’t follow our advice.
Advice can be ignored. One of my favorite advisors once told the founders of YouTube that, “People don’t want to watch video on their computers.”
Advice is useful if [...]

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I learned a lot from a recent twitter by Andrew Chen:
“Other people teach you the rules of the game. Venture Hacks teaches you how to play it.”
First, I learned that lawyers are referees, not coaches.
Second, I learned that advisors are the coaches of the startup game.
Lawyers teach you the rules of the game. But they [...]

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In The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment, part 1: Biases 1-6, Marc Andreessen kindly interprets an essay from Charlie Munger’s book, Poor Charlie’s Almanack:
“Mr. Munger’s magnum opus speech, included in the book, is The Psychology of Human Misjudgment — an exposition of 25 key forms of human behavior that lead to misjudgment and error, derived from [...]

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Here are answers to some frequently asked questions about advisors. If you have additional questions, email us at ask@venturehacks.com.
Table of Contents
General (answers follow)

What do advisors do?
Should I put together a board of advisors?
How do I get good advice?
How do I apply advice?
How do I find advisors?
How can I tell if an advisor is any good?

Compensation [...]

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Summary: Here are 2 more microhacks for finding a lead investor: (4) Incent followers to lead by telling them the truth: there probably won’t be room in the round for followers. (5) The best way to find a lead is to build something that attracts a lead: keep building your company and reducing risk.
In parts [...]

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