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Accelerated Startup: Everything You Need to Know to Make Your Startup Dreams Come True From Idea to Product to Company
Silicon Valley Venture Capitalist and Serial Entrepreneur teaches how to succeed in taking your startup from idea to product to company.
Accelerated Startup takes entrepreneurs through the startup minefield from fostering revolutionary ideas to building the right team and launching the product to raising angel and venture capital to finding the first 10,000 customers and ultimately taking the company to a successful exit. It is filled with practical lessons learned from years of hands-on experience, until now, available only in top startup accelerator programs.
Vitaly M. Golomb is one of the most dynamic and in- demand speakers and trainers in the world of startups, venture capital, and corporate innovation. A serial entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley trenches since his teenage years, he is the Managing Partner at GS Capital. He was previously a founding Partner at HP Tech Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Silicon Valley's original startup, where he was recognized as a Global Corporate Venturing Rising Star, and a three times CEO. He is a contributing writer to TechCrunch and a top-ranked mentor by accelerators and business schools in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Mr. Golomb lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and travels to over 20 countries each year to consult and speak for major conferences, corporations, associations and universities on entrepreneurship, innovation, and design. His ability to break down complex concepts and inspire, educate, and delight audiences across industries and cultures, is second to none.
Accelerated Startup takes entrepreneurs through the startup minefield from fostering revolutionary ideas to building the right team and launching the product to raising angel and venture capital to finding the first 10,000 customers and ultimately taking the company to a successful exit. It is filled with practical lessons learned from years of hands-on experience, until now, available only in top startup accelerator programs.
Vitaly M. Golomb is one of the most dynamic and in- demand speakers and trainers in the world of startups, venture capital, and corporate innovation. A serial entrepreneur in the Silicon Valley trenches since his teenage years, he is the Managing Partner at GS Capital. He was previously a founding Partner at HP Tech Ventures, the corporate venture arm of Silicon Valley's original startup, where he was recognized as a Global Corporate Venturing Rising Star, and a three times CEO. He is a contributing writer to TechCrunch and a top-ranked mentor by accelerators and business schools in the US, Europe, and Asia.
Mr. Golomb lives in the San Francisco Bay Area and travels to over 20 countries each year to consult and speak for major conferences, corporations, associations and universities on entrepreneurship, innovation, and design. His ability to break down complex concepts and inspire, educate, and delight audiences across industries and cultures, is second to none.
394 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 26, 2017
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October 30, 2020
My notes from the book =>
Starting with a joke: “The entrepreneur works 80 hours a week, to avoid working 40 hours a week.” :) * Silicon Valley developer costs are off the roof, and the road to San Francisco is a driving nightmare. But still the benefit of having an office there will by far outweigh all the downsides, because all the money is in Silicon Valley. * Thought experiment: if something like Uber would tried to operate via telephone calls 10 years ago, it simply could not manage all the drivers nad car information. So what ELSE right now in the world applications could solve that simply is not possible otherwise? * “Switching cost” - when user already has invested something (e.g. Apple accessories and purchased apps) then there is a cost to switching to android - so You also have to consider this problem while providing something new. * To start: focus on a single problem for a single target group in a single market. And if you are not embarrassed by the first version that you put out, then You have launched too late - don’t reach for perfection. * Having a co-founder is a requirement by some investors and they might not even want to hear You out otherwise. And if You pick one, then somebody who You can learn from. * When hiring for talents, then imagine in Your mind the vest experience ever taht You had in that field - and now You have something to compare to. Look for people that are 1) innovative 2) able to deliver 3) Inspire You for more 3) Fun to be with. * When You test employees and think “That was okay, I suppose…” - then this is not good enough! * Don’t subcontract unless You have the skill in Your organization to measure the quality. * If you can convince other people to believe in you, that is a Vision. If not, that is an hallucination. * A great advisor asks great questions. When picking one, ask around in other companies that they have consulted. Both the advisor and employees should be vested in 2-4 years, to motivate them into growing the company. * Convertible Note seems to be the most popular investment instrument, when the value of the company is unknown (no fixed valuation set). * Don’t underestimate the design - for many users, design IS the application. * talks about accelerator programs, that the top 5% of way better than most. So do some research - what mentors there are, what client network access etc. When You want to apply, first get in contact with some mentors there and just ask: what the accelerator is expecting, how to present Yourself. Also You should know WHAT is it that You want accelerated in Your business - user count? Prototype? What are the biggest milestones You want to reach? * The video about Your team and vision is important, practice the speech before. Be surprising, yet humble. And show Yourself as coachable! Show what you have already learned from customers and target group; and what already You have put to work according to that. * When being active in some groups, the additional benefit is all the network that You are creating for 5-10 years in the future - this is an investment in the longer run. * Be very strict on Your time schedule. If You have not yet thrown overboard at least 50% of Your oblications/actions, then You are doing too much unnecessary things. “The urgent are neve important, and important are never urgent”. Some aren't neither, but people around you insist them to get done - learn to say “No”. Meetings are NOT for catching up with people. Do that other time. * Getting an article into Forbes will get You praise personally, but not too much help on Your key metrics. * ‘The author is recommending in the beginning of StartUP to buy in all third party provider solutions, to focus on Your core business: the goal is to survive, not to get the best cost-effective solutions up. If You get 10 000 users, then You can start thinking creating custom solutions. Besides, many third party solutions offer “startup offers” for free in the beginning * When investigating something new, then 4-5 interviews already will give You 80% of the problems in that field. * With Your startup be present in all the popular sites: angel.co / angellist / crunchbase / mattermark. * Equity crowdfunding has the benefit of having small level angel investors that do not have enough power to intervene in a bad way, yet You will get hundreds of people cheering You up around the world. But first have some investments from other people, because crowd follows the herd mentality. * Pitch needs to have a strong bang in the beginning (cool 90 second story). If You grab the attention in the middle, they have already lost half of the presentation. “We are changing X, we already have the best team and we are raising 2 million, my details are on the screen”. You also need to train Your body language - feet on the ground, eye contact, strong voice. * PROFOUND - How to get better results at networking? It is the same formula as throwing a pair of dices and getting both sixes. How do You reach that? Just do it enough times and some sixes are guaranteed - the same with networking, just try again and again! * When visiting conferences, then plan ahead what You want to focus on - speak to investors or get information. Be ready to pitch 50 times a day, and the last one give the same enthusiasm as the first one, since he too does not know about You and deserves the same energy. And the office/team should be working fine without You, so You don’t need to solve some urgent problems while on the conference. * When writing e-mails etc, never have a plain “This is me, let’s stay ind touch” - always have a way to open a dialoge - ask for something or provide something. * As an investor talks about something “three year metrics graph”, a huge plan of information with resources and clients and how much money needed etc. Always add +50% money and +6 months to the goal of getting the money. * From Your users always collect rather more data than You need, since You do not know what might be useful when looking back in time. He promotes “the pirate” metric “AARRR”: measure acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, referral. This is like a pipeline that You must look for “leaking” people. Even if You can not convert the users to the end, You can get data from them why some process was a turnoff. Never go after vanity metrics, but count what really matters. * When users are ending paid subscriptions, then investigate the pattern what precedes this action, and try to contact / solve that step. * Too many companies use PR people talking to media. You can be the CEO that gets in contact Yourself and takes them to coffee for a chat - we don’t have a lot of those CEO-s. If they like You personally, they will write about Your actions. * The best stories are stories about dedication, tradition, adversity, fear, redemption, pain. * When doing sales calls or interviews, shut up for most of the time - let them talk about their problems. Have an e-mail system that none of the letters will be left unanswered, follow up. * Understand, that often people give You a “Soft NO” instead of a “No”. “If only You reach a milestone, I would invest”. “If only You had feature X, we would sign up”. “If only You had X employees, I would join” - bla bla bla! These are actually “Soft NO’s” that You need to move away from - go to people, that want You! * A strong User Community is worth a ton of gold - reach out to users and communicate, make them feel You are the underdog in this field and they will cheer You on in their life, like a favourite sports team. * Each time a client contacts You with a problem, You must not think badly of it, but instead - hey, great, they are not leaving us and are giving situational awareness about some bottlenecks”. * About trade shows - don’t even rent a booth but go around and sell Yourself. In the back of all business cards write the next actions step for contacting that person. Time is valuable, say “Thank You, no” to every person that is not aligned with Your field or goals; this is no time for chit-chat. * When You want to leave Your position as a CEO, then leave the company altogether (unless You have a very specific role You fit in, like a COO), because the old employees (friends) will not give the new CEO authority when You stick around - they still want to ask You questions, but You don’t have the current vision any more and are not the right person to answer those questions. * When Your company is growing slowly, then it might be wise to quit it altogether and start a new one, to take off as a rocket. * "Silicon Valley isn't a place, it's a mindset."
Starting with a joke: “The entrepreneur works 80 hours a week, to avoid working 40 hours a week.” :) * Silicon Valley developer costs are off the roof, and the road to San Francisco is a driving nightmare. But still the benefit of having an office there will by far outweigh all the downsides, because all the money is in Silicon Valley. * Thought experiment: if something like Uber would tried to operate via telephone calls 10 years ago, it simply could not manage all the drivers nad car information. So what ELSE right now in the world applications could solve that simply is not possible otherwise? * “Switching cost” - when user already has invested something (e.g. Apple accessories and purchased apps) then there is a cost to switching to android - so You also have to consider this problem while providing something new. * To start: focus on a single problem for a single target group in a single market. And if you are not embarrassed by the first version that you put out, then You have launched too late - don’t reach for perfection. * Having a co-founder is a requirement by some investors and they might not even want to hear You out otherwise. And if You pick one, then somebody who You can learn from. * When hiring for talents, then imagine in Your mind the vest experience ever taht You had in that field - and now You have something to compare to. Look for people that are 1) innovative 2) able to deliver 3) Inspire You for more 3) Fun to be with. * When You test employees and think “That was okay, I suppose…” - then this is not good enough! * Don’t subcontract unless You have the skill in Your organization to measure the quality. * If you can convince other people to believe in you, that is a Vision. If not, that is an hallucination. * A great advisor asks great questions. When picking one, ask around in other companies that they have consulted. Both the advisor and employees should be vested in 2-4 years, to motivate them into growing the company. * Convertible Note seems to be the most popular investment instrument, when the value of the company is unknown (no fixed valuation set). * Don’t underestimate the design - for many users, design IS the application. * talks about accelerator programs, that the top 5% of way better than most. So do some research - what mentors there are, what client network access etc. When You want to apply, first get in contact with some mentors there and just ask: what the accelerator is expecting, how to present Yourself. Also You should know WHAT is it that You want accelerated in Your business - user count? Prototype? What are the biggest milestones You want to reach? * The video about Your team and vision is important, practice the speech before. Be surprising, yet humble. And show Yourself as coachable! Show what you have already learned from customers and target group; and what already You have put to work according to that. * When being active in some groups, the additional benefit is all the network that You are creating for 5-10 years in the future - this is an investment in the longer run. * Be very strict on Your time schedule. If You have not yet thrown overboard at least 50% of Your oblications/actions, then You are doing too much unnecessary things. “The urgent are neve important, and important are never urgent”. Some aren't neither, but people around you insist them to get done - learn to say “No”. Meetings are NOT for catching up with people. Do that other time. * Getting an article into Forbes will get You praise personally, but not too much help on Your key metrics. * ‘The author is recommending in the beginning of StartUP to buy in all third party provider solutions, to focus on Your core business: the goal is to survive, not to get the best cost-effective solutions up. If You get 10 000 users, then You can start thinking creating custom solutions. Besides, many third party solutions offer “startup offers” for free in the beginning * When investigating something new, then 4-5 interviews already will give You 80% of the problems in that field. * With Your startup be present in all the popular sites: angel.co / angellist / crunchbase / mattermark. * Equity crowdfunding has the benefit of having small level angel investors that do not have enough power to intervene in a bad way, yet You will get hundreds of people cheering You up around the world. But first have some investments from other people, because crowd follows the herd mentality. * Pitch needs to have a strong bang in the beginning (cool 90 second story). If You grab the attention in the middle, they have already lost half of the presentation. “We are changing X, we already have the best team and we are raising 2 million, my details are on the screen”. You also need to train Your body language - feet on the ground, eye contact, strong voice. * PROFOUND - How to get better results at networking? It is the same formula as throwing a pair of dices and getting both sixes. How do You reach that? Just do it enough times and some sixes are guaranteed - the same with networking, just try again and again! * When visiting conferences, then plan ahead what You want to focus on - speak to investors or get information. Be ready to pitch 50 times a day, and the last one give the same enthusiasm as the first one, since he too does not know about You and deserves the same energy. And the office/team should be working fine without You, so You don’t need to solve some urgent problems while on the conference. * When writing e-mails etc, never have a plain “This is me, let’s stay ind touch” - always have a way to open a dialoge - ask for something or provide something. * As an investor talks about something “three year metrics graph”, a huge plan of information with resources and clients and how much money needed etc. Always add +50% money and +6 months to the goal of getting the money. * From Your users always collect rather more data than You need, since You do not know what might be useful when looking back in time. He promotes “the pirate” metric “AARRR”: measure acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, referral. This is like a pipeline that You must look for “leaking” people. Even if You can not convert the users to the end, You can get data from them why some process was a turnoff. Never go after vanity metrics, but count what really matters. * When users are ending paid subscriptions, then investigate the pattern what precedes this action, and try to contact / solve that step. * Too many companies use PR people talking to media. You can be the CEO that gets in contact Yourself and takes them to coffee for a chat - we don’t have a lot of those CEO-s. If they like You personally, they will write about Your actions. * The best stories are stories about dedication, tradition, adversity, fear, redemption, pain. * When doing sales calls or interviews, shut up for most of the time - let them talk about their problems. Have an e-mail system that none of the letters will be left unanswered, follow up. * Understand, that often people give You a “Soft NO” instead of a “No”. “If only You reach a milestone, I would invest”. “If only You had feature X, we would sign up”. “If only You had X employees, I would join” - bla bla bla! These are actually “Soft NO’s” that You need to move away from - go to people, that want You! * A strong User Community is worth a ton of gold - reach out to users and communicate, make them feel You are the underdog in this field and they will cheer You on in their life, like a favourite sports team. * Each time a client contacts You with a problem, You must not think badly of it, but instead - hey, great, they are not leaving us and are giving situational awareness about some bottlenecks”. * About trade shows - don’t even rent a booth but go around and sell Yourself. In the back of all business cards write the next actions step for contacting that person. Time is valuable, say “Thank You, no” to every person that is not aligned with Your field or goals; this is no time for chit-chat. * When You want to leave Your position as a CEO, then leave the company altogether (unless You have a very specific role You fit in, like a COO), because the old employees (friends) will not give the new CEO authority when You stick around - they still want to ask You questions, but You don’t have the current vision any more and are not the right person to answer those questions. * When Your company is growing slowly, then it might be wise to quit it altogether and start a new one, to take off as a rocket. * "Silicon Valley isn't a place, it's a mindset."
June 27, 2017
As one of the editors of this book, I may have read it more carefully than most -- but I learned a tremendous amount in the process. Vitaly's in-depth knowledge of what it takes to take a company from start to finish is astonishing.
The book goes from pre-idea (where do good ideas come from?) to how to evaluate an idea for a solution, how to build a prototype and test the product on customers. From there, it's all about raising money, scaling the product, getting it to market, and an eventual exit. The book also covers what to do next; how to give back to the startup community.
It's a fantastic read and a great primer for entrepreneurs new and experienced.
The book goes from pre-idea (where do good ideas come from?) to how to evaluate an idea for a solution, how to build a prototype and test the product on customers. From there, it's all about raising money, scaling the product, getting it to market, and an eventual exit. The book also covers what to do next; how to give back to the startup community.
It's a fantastic read and a great primer for entrepreneurs new and experienced.
April 12, 2020
This book is -in my opinion - mostly written for early stage, maybe seed, companies and for entrepreneurs that already have good insights of the start up metodologies. Thats what I like the most since I'm kind of fed of book for starters only and superficial covering of certain relevant topics that worry any ceo. The intro about innovation is a particularly good kick off by the way.
Recommended for people with medium knowledge of building a start-up methods.
I thought that this book was going to be a generic blueprint to start a new company, but it actuallys covers some topics that I haven't read in other similar best sellers books.
Recommended for people with medium knowledge of building a start-up methods.
I thought that this book was going to be a generic blueprint to start a new company, but it actuallys covers some topics that I haven't read in other similar best sellers books.
August 27, 2018
Yeah it's pretty good for those getting into the startup world. A solid baseline I would have benefited from a few years ago.
March 15, 2017
Always the bad first. The only bad aspect I would point is the topics seem simple/trivial here and there.
Now, the good: Golomb's book is a great manual with all the startup essentials. It's a summarized, compact roadmap to the startup journey that draws knowledge from different areas ranging from fundraising to hiring, culture and more. It's short and to the point, providing great value.
Now, the good: Golomb's book is a great manual with all the startup essentials. It's a summarized, compact roadmap to the startup journey that draws knowledge from different areas ranging from fundraising to hiring, culture and more. It's short and to the point, providing great value.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews