Startups & Founders
Every idea in Doomscholar on startups & founders. Open any one to read it in layers, with its sources.
- 1,000 True FansKevin KellyA creator needs only 1,000 true fans paying ~$100/year to make a living; the long tail enables niche businesses.
- A Proposal to American Research and DevelopmentKen Olsen / Harlan AndersonA small team could sell profitable digital circuit modules first and interactive computers later, at a moment when investors were sure computers were a money-losing business.
- Aggregation TheoryBen ThompsonInternet-era winners aggregate demand by owning the user relationship and commoditizing suppliers.
- Airbnb Series A Pitch DeckAirbnb (Brian Chesky et al.)A web platform to book rooms with locals rather than hotels.
- All Markets Are Not Created Equal (Note to Self on TAM)Bill GurleyTen factors determine whether a digital marketplace can become large and durable; not all TAMs are equal.
- BlitzscalingReid Hoffman & Chris YehPrioritize speed over efficiency in winner-take-all markets to achieve massive scale before competitors.
- Blue Ocean StrategyW. Chan Kim & Renée MauborgneLasting competitive advantage comes not from beating rivals in existing markets ('red oceans') but from creating uncontested market space ('blue oceans') where competition is irrelevant.
- Competition Is for LosersPeter ThielMonopolies, not competition, create durable value; founders should seek to build category-defining monopolies.
- Distribution Follows a Power LawPeter ThielMost startups fail from poor distribution, not a bad product — and since distribution channels themselves follow a power law, the winning strategy is to find and dominate a single channel rather than spreading thin across several mediocre ones.
- Do Things That Don't ScalePaul GrahamEarly startups should manually recruit users and do unscalable work; growth comes from effort, not automation.
- Facebook (thefacebook) Media Kit / Early PitchFacebookA college social network with dense engagement and a captive, targetable young audience for advertisers.
- Fairchild Semiconductor FoundingArthur Rock / Eugene KleinerEight scientists who walked out on Shockley could build a silicon-device company if anyone would back them; about 35 corporations were approached and every one passed.
- Great, Good, and Gruesome BusinessesWarren BuffettA truly exceptional business must possess an enduring competitive advantage — an economic moat — that protects its high returns on invested capital from the relentless assault of free-market capitalism.
- How to Get Startup IdeasPaul GrahamThe best startup ideas are things founders themselves want that sound like bad ideas but are good; live in the future and build what's missing.
- Invisible AsymptotesEugene WeiEvery growth curve has an invisible ceiling; great companies identify and route around theirs before hitting it.
- LinkedIn Series B Pitch Deck (Greylock)Reid HoffmanPitch the investment thesis, not the product: LinkedIn raised a $10 million Series B in 2004 with no revenue by steering straight into investors' biggest objection and arguing by analogy that networks — eBay, PayPal, Google — beat directories.
- SaaS Metrics 2.0David SkokA definitive dashboard of SaaS unit economics (CAC, LTV, churn, magic number) for building and funding SaaS.
- The Cook and the ChefTim UrbanA Cook reasons by analogy, blindly following existing recipes. A Chef reasons from first principles, inventing new recipes from raw ingredients.
- The Lean Startup / Minimum Viable ProductEric RiesStartups should build-measure-learn with a minimum viable product to find product-market fit before scaling.
- The New MoatsJerry ChenSystems of intelligence built on proprietary data and AI/ML form the durable competitive moats of the next era.
- The Rise of the Solo CapitalistsNikhil Basu TrivediSolo GPs writing large checks are a new competitive force disrupting traditional multi-partner VC firms.
- The Secret Tesla Motors Master Plan (just between you and me)Elon MuskBootstrap an EV company from the top down: build an expensive low-volume sports car, use the proceeds to fund progressively cheaper, higher-volume models, and drive the transition to sustainable energy.
- UberCab Pitch DeckUber (Garrett Camp / Travis Kalanick)On-demand black-car service summoned from a phone, pitched as 'NextGen car service.'
- You're Probably Too EarlyMarc Andreessen (via The Startup Archive)Founders are far more likely to fail from being too early — building the right idea before the infrastructure or market is ready — than from being too late, which means a founder's own sense of 'someone must already be doing this' is a poor signal to act on.
- YouTube Investment MemoRoelof Botha / Sequoia CapitalYouTube is capturing explosive user-generated video growth and will define online video.
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