한국 창업자분들 가끔 별 댓가없이 돕고있는데, 대부분 너무 잘 하시지만 아직도 가끔 커뮤니케이션에 있어서 미묘한 문화적 차이들을 보이는 분들도 계심. Bumsoo Kim 대표님의 유튜브를 한번 먼저 보시길..덧) 생각해보니 몇가지 항목들은 sympathy의 부재에서 오기도 하는듯. 내 중심이 아닌 받는사람 중심으로 생각해야 하는데, 반대로 내가 편한쪽으로 생각해서. Continue reading 커뮤니케이션의 미묘한 문화적 차이
After a 3-way meeting (myself, a founder starting a new business, and a VC who used to be a founder himself), the VC told me: (Speaking of the amazing enthusiasm of the founder) “See the energy? I don’t have it. I’m too old. That’s why I’m not starting another company.” Well – turned out, the … Continue reading Age Is Just a Number
Quick thoughts from Consensus (late posting): Continue reading Quick Thoughts from Consensus 2023
I like how Alex Kwon is developing his current product. I call it a two-track product development. There’s the main product, Perl, which is a social journaling and microblogging tool for startup founders. (The product hasn’t been publicly launched yet.) And then there’s this awesome Telegram group he runs, where the initially invited users hang … Continue reading Two-track Product Development
“Some things just take time to build. Look at Figma and Notion. Took years to build the product first, before seeing the traction taking off.” – wise words of Kgosi Diphokwane It’s a refreshing reminder, when the world can’t have enough hackathon-style products built in 2 weeks on GPT API. Thousands of projects popping up … Continue reading Some Things Just Take Time to Build
How do you build a unicorn? In summary, the numbers you have to go for: 10M+ total active users10%+ freemium conversion1M+ paying users$10/mo+ ARPPU Of course there are so many other factors (e.g. market environment, churn/retention, CAC and unit economics, etc), so the above is just a back of the envelop math, at best. But … Continue reading How to Build a Unicorn
I shouldn’t generalize, but when I see a management consultant leaving their position and immediately starting a new startup, I get concerned. My recommendation is, try to get a job at a high-growth startup and learn from good founders and management team by working side by side with them. Or, if there’s an industry you’re … Continue reading Consultant to Founder
Sometimes, founders postpone layoffs because they care about their team and want to protect them as much as possible. This is understandable because layoffs are the most difficult, gut-wrenching decision. Just be aware, this deliberate (hence slow) approach often backfire. When a company considers layoffs, people at the company usually get a sense of what’s … Continue reading Postponing Layoffs = Doubly Sucks
For founders who had to shut down their company recently — Again, just keep yourself super busy physically – that’s my #1 tip. Continue reading For Founders Who Had to Shut Down Their Co’s
Four months in, a quick recap on my sabbatical: Continue reading My Sabbatical – Quick Recap So Far