Startup School 2008

On 19th April 2008 at the Kresge Auditorium, Stanford University, 11 of the key players in tech entrepreneurship shared their wisdom on startups at the 4th annual Startup School conference. Andy and I had the pleasure of attending along with 500 other aspiring hackers and entrepreneurs from around the world.

We arrived on the Friday afternoon and after a party at Y Combinator in Mountain View where we met many of the YC alumni, including Trevor Blackwell’s robots, we stayed at Snaptalent HQ along with Kev Edwards and Jon Markwell from the Brighton entrepreneur scene.

There’s already been some good coverage of Startup School 2008 by TechCrunch, Wired and Kontsevoy so rather than go into too much detail, I’m going to share the key messages that have stuck most firmly in my mind since the day:

1. David Lawee – VP, Corporate Development, Google

My 2 Cents on Entrepreneurship

“Hurry up! Speed is the greatest source of competitive advantage of a startup.”

2. Sam Altman – Founder & CEO, Loopt

How to raise money

“Taking VC does not leave the sell-for-£20M-in-a-year option open.”

3. Jack Sheridan – Chairman, Business Law, Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati

SO, YOU WANT TO START A COMPANY?…

“The average time from a company founding to a liquidity event (i.e. merger, acquisition, public listing) is 7 years.”

4. Paul Graham – Founder, Viaweb; Partner, Y Combinator

Make something people want

“Being good works. If a startup is benevolent, they keep working even when they feel doomed. Being benevolent:

1. Improves morale
2. Makes other people want to help you
3. Makes decisions easier”

Paul Graham at Startup School 2008 on Omnisio

5. Greg McAdoo – Partner, Sequoia Capital

MAVS

“Disruptive opportunities are ones where there are structural reasons big companies can’t compete with you.”

6. David Heinemeier Hansson – Founder, 37 Signals

The secret to making money online

“This isn’t the movie industry – you don’t need to dominate the box office!
e.g. with 2000 customers paying $40/month, you’re nearly making ~$1M/year.
Why not go for the 1:10 chance of a million dollar company instead of a 1:10,000 chance of a billion dollar company?”

7. Paul Buchheit – Creator, Gmail; Founder, FriendFeed

Listening

Limited life experience + overgeneralisation = advice

=> Listen -> Decode -> Interpret -> Understand

8. Jeff Bezos – Founder, Amazon

Amazon Web Services

On AWS: “Amazon will be like a book store which sells cocaine out of the back door.”
The point being that mature businesses need to keep innovating in order to remain competitive.

Jeff Bezos at Startup School 2008 on Omnisio

9. Michael Arrington – Founder, TechCrunch

How to get press for your startup

“We only want to write the stories you don’t want written.”

10. Mark Andreesen – Founder, Netscape, Opsware & Ning

Q & A with Jessica Livingston

“To minimise the risk of timing, keep burn low to give as much runway as possible to maximise the chance of the market maturing sufficiently.”

11. Peter Norvig – Director of Research, Google

SUMMARY OF ADVICE

“Running a startup is like guiding a missile: move fast, build in positive feedback, iterate and repeat.”

Jessica Livingston did a fantastic job of organising the day, and echoing the words of many other attendees:

“That’s the best conference I’ve ever been to and it didn’t even cost a cent!”