profile

StartUp To ScaleUp

StartUp Founders: One Rule

Published about 1 year ago • 1 min read

Hey Reader,

Every founder is driven by the pursuit of advantage. The shortcuts, insights, frameworks, and sparks that, just maybe, ignite the one idea, the one insight, the unlock code that can be leveraged. One goal. Move faster, smarter, better.

Last week's newsletter, on founders navigating the space between what was and what will be... resonated... <join in>

The great thing about someone else's method is that one of two things will happen:

  1. Either you'll embrace it, find that it works for you, and grow because of it.
  2. You'll disagree so strongly that it brings clarity to your own approach.

Either way, you win.

There is only one golden rule to building a successful startup - it's a universal truth:

Build a winning team.
Build something people want and are willing to pay for.
Do it fast, keep it lean.

That's the whole playbook. Everything else is just details.

The frameworks, growth hacks, bits & things are just methods others have created to solve their own challenges and might help you execute these core principles better. They're the how, not the what.

Take a second, step back, and make sure you are not making this more complicated than it needs to be.

Have an amazing week.

LFG,

James

P.S. Back to frameworks next week. For sure.

​

Not A Subscriber?

Join 140k+ StartUp Founders reading my weekly newsletter offering tactical insights to start, scale, and fund their startup. Real advice from a 3x exited founder.

​

​

‪8424 Santa Monica Blvd, Suite A523, Los Angeles, CA 90069
​Unsubscribe · Preferences​

StartUp To ScaleUp

by James Sinclair

Where 140k+ founders read my weekly newsletter offering tactical insights to start, scale, and fund their startup. Real advice from a 3x exited founder & author of the #1 Best Seller "Starting A StartUp | Build Something People Want."

Read more from StartUp To ScaleUp

Hey Reader, A quick break from me screaming at you to run faster. To stop doing random acts of nothingness. To cause way more problems and stop looking for comfort. Also. Just finish the job. I want to talk about co-founders, why you should think about one, and the misunderstood reason why the capital markets love them so much. Why a newsletter about it? Because for so many people starting, this is a really tough mind game…. and deserves some reflection. But also. Hurry up. Be specific. And...

10 days ago • 6 min read

Hey Reader, You are reliably wrong. Such a brutal thing to say out loud to someone who’s been watching the data, reading the patterns, trusting what keeps showing up, and following the clock speed playbook: Release, learn, iterate, release. Customer ghosts. Investor declines. Recruit passes. The same objection on every call. The same behavior in your org. The same reason deals stall. The same AI summary…. As a founder, part of (most of) the journey, the experience, the game, is finding the...

17 days ago • 4 min read

Hey Reader, So many founders, way too early, before they truly know their ICP, their pricing, their product, their channels, their anything, get a tiny bit of traction, and then start racing to normalcy. Implementing systems and processes trying to stabilize the ship. The thinking is that the mayhem you're running is unsustainable and fixing that is the priority. It rarely is the priority. In 2023 I wrote embracing chaos: “92% of your company is virtually identical to every other firm in your...

about 1 month ago • 8 min read