A startup founder told me recently: “There are times when I get lazy and coast. You know, startup life is so hard. But that’s when I see my cofounder showing up on the shared Figma board at 1am, and committing a code change at 2am. That’s a total kick-butt moment for me. He makes me … Continue reading Healthy Cofounder Relationship
NVDA is worth $960bn, which is almost 3x Samsung Electronics today (at $353bn). What a change in 20 years. I remember, when I was at Samsung in 2004, some folks at Samsung even refused to take meetings with Nvidia because they were considered too small. What does this small upstart company, headed by this guy … Continue reading What Can Happen in 20 Years
Founders need to keep practicing compartmentatlizing their brain. At startups, bad sh*t happens all the time. Don’t let one bad thing affect the rest of your day. Lock up the bad thing in one zone, like locking up a beast in a cage, and move on. Of course this is easier said than done, but … Continue reading Compartmentalizing Brain
Soon after starting my career, I had a chance to meet a highly accomplished Taiwanese entrepreneur during his visit to our company. (My first job was at a Korean internet company – I worked there in lieu of the compulsive military service.) I was lucky enough to sit next to him during dinner (the fact … Continue reading Shine in Small Things
창업자들에게 가장 큰 축복중 하나는 좋은 멘토를 만나는 것이다. 내생각에 좋은 멘토의 조건은 (멘토의 자격과 지적 능력 등은 given으로 치고) 두가지인데, 애정과 솔직함인것 같다. 가끔 “독설가”들을 보게 되는데, 세게 얘기하는건 전혀 문제가 없다. 우린 모두 바쁘고 시간이 없기에 돌려 말하지 않고 직설적으로 말하는것은 필요하고 고마운 일이다. 그런데 포커스가 상대방인지, 자신인지가 차이인것 같다. 답답하더라도 그래도 상대가 … Continue reading 멘토의 조건
I often find I’m pretty bad at keeping in touch with folks. I don’t really have any good system. So what I try to do more these days is “micro check ins”: “Hey – I was reading this article/book and was thinking about you”“Just a random ping – how’s everything?”“Thought you and s/he should meet, … Continue reading Micro Check-Ins
For the so-called “roll-up” acquisitions, it’s easy for companies to only think about the horizontal acquisition model, i.e. merging with or acquiring competitors within the same industry. The goal is often to expand market share/top line revenue and reduce cost by consolidating resources and eliminating redundancies. But keep in mind that’s only one way of … Continue reading Horizontal Acquisition vs. Vertical Acquisition
A company that I recently found had a very interesting PMF journey; before building a fully baked product, they did consulting/service work for almost a year, helping 100+ clients. This helped them find common problems their clients were going through, and define the v1 feature sets to address those common problems. Another benefit was to … Continue reading Doing Consulting Work before Building Product
한국 스타트업 대표님들이 더 잘해야 하는것중 하나는 “도움 요청하기” 이다.(비단 한국 대표님들만 그런건 아니지만, 확실히 어느정도 문화차이가 존재하는것 같다.) 투자자들은 자주 이렇게 얘기한다. “저희는 사업은 모르겠고 그냥 대표님 보고 투자했어요.” (이게 사실 엄청 잔인한 말이라는 것은 들어본 사람만 암. 무한 책임을 지라는 말이니까..)이런 말을 들을때, 대표님들이 해야 하는건 “네 감사합니다, 열심히 하겠습니다”에서 그치는게 아니라, 여기서 … Continue reading 도움 요청하기