As a venture scout and as someone who loves helping pre-seed/seed startups before they get to the A, I get asked this one question more often than I expect. “David, do you think this is a good idea?” Most of the time, admittedly, I don’t know. Why? I’m not the core user. I wouldn’t count myself as an early adopter who could become a power user, outside of pure curiosity. I’m not their customer. To quote Michael Seibel of Y Combinator,
… “customers are the gatekeepers of the startups world.” Then comes the question, if customers are the gatekeepers to the venture world, how do you know if you’re on to something if you’re any one of the below:
Pre-product,
Pre-traction,
And/or pre-revenue?
This blog post isn’t designed to be the crystal ball to all your problems. I have to disappoint. I’m a Muggle without the power of Divination. But instead, let me share 3 mental models that might help a budding founder find idea-market fit. Let’s call it a tracker’s kit that may increase your chances at finding a unicorn.
Yesterday, having read my most recent blog post on social experiments, one of my friends asked me why I decided to finally start the blog. My simple answer was “to make myself obsolete”. The question that inevitably followed was:
“Why?”
Although not incredibly common, I’ve had a very small handful of friends and family ask me similar questions. All of which either directly ask or border “Why share all my secrets?”. Admittedly, all is subjective in this case, as I’m not keen on posting my social security or my social media log-in information on here.
Wouldn’t I be more competitive in this saturated (although I argue otherwise) market if I kept them to myself?
On a startup front, wouldn’t sharing the rationale of others and my own enable founders to “game the system?”
In response to (1), your competitive edge in the 21st century isn’t how many ideas you’ve hoarded, but how many you’ve executed on. And frankly, if we can cooperate to build a better world, why not?
For (2), if founders can “game the system” just by reading my blog, which requires them to have concrete evidence for growth and the questions fellow investors and I pose, well then, it’d be a great example of “faking it till they make it”. My blog merely provides a framework, plus a few stories, to how some of the smartest people around have overcome their obstacles. By the time the system tests them, I hope they’ll conquer the adversity in front of them and have the discipline to push forward.
What’s inside the black box?
I’m extremely happy to share “my” secrets. And I use the term secrets loosely, much like Peter Thiel does in his book Zero to One. In fact, the only reason I have any insight into life is that experienced experts were generous enough to share theirs with me. In other words, none of my insights are truly original. All are borrowed from the best, until I create a version that I resonate with more.
Simply put, if my ‘secrets’ and insights help even just one person out there to live a better life, then I’m a happy camper. My goal is to make the future a better place to live in. Oddly enough, it also happens to be one of the reasons I’m in venture capital. Only by sharing what I believe to be right and morally right am I able to help move the needle, if only by a little bit. As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a huge fan of people going through the idea maze and spending time and effort on insight development. If I can help catalyze those motions in my readers through my blog, then I’ll toast to that.
The Flip Side
However, I should mention there are secrets that I will carry to the grave with me. For instance, outside of the obvious, like SSN and credit card info, ones that…
My friends/colleagues tell me in confidence,
Cause more harm than good in the world,
Cause more harm than good to the people around me,
Carry malicious intentions,
And/or reveal why I put OJ in my breakfast cereal.
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost).Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
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Coronavirus. Candidate primaries. Market crashes. And what motivates us to get shit done. During a bite with one of my buddies from college, we ended up chatting about a myriad of topics. From crying when we scared as a baby to eating when we’re hungry, humans inherently act reactively than proactively.
Let’s put it into perspective:
Wildfires in Australia and previously in California brought nature preservation front and center.
Because of the coronavirus, China set up a hospital in 10 days. Whereas in SF, it takes years to extend our public metro, BART, to just one more station.
In startup land, look how much innovation is being done on the SaaS front. Competition drives progress. A need to be better than your competitors, or perish. On the flip side, innovation at the frontiers of technology are happening at a much slower pace. You’re right in thinking part of it is due to an element of technological risk and mystery. But a large part is also due to funding, awareness, and urgency. I was catching up with another friend, not too long ago, who’s working on the frontiers of AI research. He told me that he’s just not motivated to meet any deadlines. If he misses it, “Oh well.” And if he does reach any milestone, there’s barely a pat on the back.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, and I’m paraphrasing here, once said (in one of his StarTalk Radio episodes): we think if we reach commercial viability of space travel or tourism in 50 years, that it’ll be really impressive. But it’s really not. Why? If, hypothetically, aliens from another galaxy contacted us today and said, “We’re going to invade your planet in 50 years”, we will have a different sense of progress. And if in 50 years, we can only just start to commercialize space travel, we’d be sitting ducks.
If you have a final in the morning tomorrow and you happen to be a procrastinator (or not), you’re going to be burning the midnight oil. Otherwise, realistically, would you be studying day and night every day?
Tim Ferriss asks himself this one question: If in 2 years, you’re set to die. In perfect health, and a perfectly natural death. What do you have to do before you die? What will you regret no having done? So, what really matters? (I lied; it’s not really one question.)
So, how do I induce a sense of urgency? How do I motivate myselfwhen I don’t have any impending time horizons?
One, accountability partners. Friends who keep me (and me them) accountable to my goals, like my birthday resolution. Where in 6 months, upon failure, I lose $100. Or upon success, I get treated to a really nice meal.
Two, something I took from my good friend. I once asked him about how he continues to push himself towards new experiences every month. After all, he’s the kind of person who lives a life that makes me feel as if I’ve done nothing. In response, he said:
“Fall in love.”
“I don’t get it,” I replied perplexed.
“Because it’ll make you want to impress your crush. And when you go on that date every week or every two weeks, you’ll want to show off. And the only way you can show off is if you have something to show off. So, I don’t let my dreams sit. I get shit done.”
#unfiltered is a series where I share my raw thoughts and unfiltered commentary about anything and everything. It’s not designed to go down smoothly like the best cup of cappuccino you’ve ever had (although here‘s where I found mine), more like the lonely coffee bean still struggling to find its identity (which also may one day find its way into a more thesis-driven blogpost).Who knows? The possibilities are endless.
I have a love-hate relationship with that word. On one hand, I love and seek to learn from creative souls. It’s a trait that I seriously respect in individuals, regardless of industry, profession, or background. On the other hand, it’s rather amorphous. What’s creative to me may not be creative to you. We are bounded by the parameters of our experiences and what we, as individuals, are exposed to.
So, where do innovators draw inspiration?
Over the years, I’ve seen inspiration stem from three main frameworks:
The flow from art;
Margins;
And, what people dislike.
The Flow from Art
I seem to find that the data largely (with a few outliers) points towards the following:
Art precedes science. Science precedes tech. Tech precedes business. Business precedes law.
Art is bounded only by one’s imagination. Science, which draws inspiration from art, is limited by our physical universe and the fundamental laws. And, tech rides on the coattails of science, restricted by the patterns recognized in our universe by scientists before them. Similarly, business can only optimize existing technology. Following suit, regulations and legal practice can only debate and prevent ramifications that have turned from hypothesis to reality.
On one end of the spectrum, fiction has driven innovation on the fundamental, scientific front. Scientists have tried to make the impossible – fiction, superstition, assumptions, and imagination – possible. On the other end, the legal and regulatory space has empirically lagged behind business innovation. From autonomous driving to the shared economy to video games, a regulatory emphasis came only after incidents occurred. I’m a huge proponent of founders becoming self-regulatory. But that is a discussion for another day.
Margins
As Jeff Bezos famously said:
“Your margin is my opportunity.”
In the lens of a businessperson, profits exist on the margins. In a fully saturated market, as we learned in economics class, perfect competition will squeeze out profits. That margin can be delta between human perfection and imperfection. It can be the difference between a naive and sophisticated individual. It can also be the blind spots between a self-awareness and ignorance.
The good news (and bad news?) is that humans aren’t rational. As much as we try to be, we’re not. We repeat the same mistakes. After all, that’s where our favorite stories come from – the fact that we’re imperfect. If we were rational, our friendly neighborhood kid from Queens wouldn’t have to struggle with identity. Or, Skinner, the head chef at Auguste Gusteau’s restaurant, wouldn’t be out to exterminate my favorite rat chef.
From a nonfictional front, if we were rational, gambling, the lottery, therapy, and more wouldn’t exist. In fact, there’s a whole industry that capitalizes on human imperfection – insurance. We choose to reach for that last cookie when we know a healthier diet with less sugar is better for us (I’m guilty as well). We set New Year’s resolutions to work out more, but regress to our couch norm after the first month. Walter Mischel famously conducted The Marshmallow Experiment. When given the option to wait 15 minutes to double their treats, many children opted for immediate gratification.
There would be way fewer founders if they were rational. I mean, come on, the numbers work against them. 90% of startups fail. So, from a VC’s perspective, we have to ask ourselves:
What’s is the underlying notion that makes this product work?
What is that innate theme in human or societal development that won’t disappear anytime soon? What factors produce such a trend? And what margin is it taking advantage of? Uber was made possible with the evolution of smartphone and faster data. As more data were archived online, Google became a reality because of the internet and browser. Two current examples of underlying notions include:
Audio, including, but not limited to, podcasts and audiobooks, is the new form of content consumption. Not only does it free up consumers’ hands and eyes up, audio content is often easier to digest. The spoken word has been around millennia, whereas print is fairly new invention. Emotions and sarcasm is often easier to relay via audio than via print. So, what else is possible?
With growing consumer sentiment against traditional social media, like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, there is a shift to social experiences surrounding active participation. Sarah Tavel writes a great piece on this. Examples include Discord, Medium, TikTok, and user-generated content (UGC) in video games, like mods and in-game skins. Many of the traditional social media platforms leave users with a more negative passive experience, where they feel a sense of FOMO (fear of missing out). Through active participation, users can be a part of the conversation, rather than watch from the sidelines.
What do you dislike?
Speaking of negative experiences, aversion is a strong motivating emotion humans have. Like prospect theory illustrates, loss invokes a stronger response than gains. It also happens to be one of the reasons why I probe how obsessed a founder is about a certain problem.
In a recent interview with Andrew “Kappy” Kaplan, host of the podcast, Beyond the Plate, Grant Achatz, legendary chef, talks briefly about how he drew inspiration from his daughter’s dislike of cheese, yet she still ate pizza and grilled cheese sandwiches. Similarly, when his guests at Alinea didn’t like sea urchin, he thought about the ‘why’ and if he could circumvent their aversion by playing with various variables, including iodine concentration.
So, what do you dislike (with a passion)? What about the people around you? And can you figure out a way to change or eliminate that frustration? Take some time through the idea maze.
In closing
Ideas come in all shapes and sizes. Some may be more obvious than others. Some may snowball into a best-selling one. Although I’ve shared the three most common frameworks that I’ve personally generated and seen others find inspiration, it is, of course, not the only ways to exercise your creative muscle. In fact, the first step into being more “creative” is being cognizant about everything around you.
Two years ago, one of my former professors recommended I start ‘idea-journaling’ every day. Since I’ve started, I began noticing more and more stimuli from my surroundings, conversations and frustrations.
It may be a start, but it’s by no means an end. Stay curious.
