Startup Wisdom

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Competition

Every resource in the archive tagged with competition.

11 resources

2002 Letter to ShareholdersLetter

2002 Letter to Shareholders

Jeff Bezos

Apr 2003 · 12 min read

How Amazon turned customer experience into a fixed cost to deliver both great service and low prices.

Employee RetentionEssay

Employee Retention

Sam Altman

5 min read

Why keeping early employees matters more than hiring them, and three strategies that actually work.

The Hardest Lessons for Startups to LearnEssay

The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn

Paul Graham

Apr 2006 · 21 min read

The counterintuitive lessons startups repeatedly fail to learn: release early, keep improving, make users happy, and fear the right threats.

Eric Schmidt on why most companies get strategy wrongVideo

Eric Schmidt on why most companies get strategy wrong

Eric Schmidt

Mar 2026 · 1 min read

Why strategy should start from what the world will look like in five years, not from your products.

Lead BulletsEssay

Lead Bullets

Ben Horowitz

9 min read

Leaders should deliver hard truths to their teams even when doing so risks unpopularity.

How You KnowEssay

How You Know

Paul Graham

May 2003 · 25 min read

Why startups beat incumbents in design wars: design-by-committee deliberately trades away upside to avoid downside.

Life Is ShortEssay

Life Is Short

Paul Graham

Apr 2001 · 1 min read

Time is finite, so choose work and people that matter most to you.

How to Make WealthEssay

How to Make Wealth

Paul Graham

May 2004 · 39 min read

Starting a startup is the most reliable way to compress your earning potential by working intensely for a few years instead of a lifetime.

Schlep BlindnessEssay

Schlep Blindness

Paul Graham

Jan 2012 · 4 min read

Great startup ideas fail because our unconscious mind avoids problems requiring tedious, difficult work.

How to Get Startup IdeasEssay

How to Get Startup Ideas

Paul Graham

Nov 2012 · 32 min read

The best startup ideas come from problems you have yourself, not from trying to think of startup ideas.

Guide to Startups, Part 2: When the VCs say noEssay

Guide to Startups, Part 2: When the VCs say no

Marc Andreessen

Jun 2007 · 11 min read

How to reduce layers of risk in your startup plan after VCs say no.