Cake Financial (LTV, Tuesday, Week 3)

MVP/hypothesis does NOT have to directly contribute to product development.
Example: you could test whether 40-55 y/o males will share their investment decisions by running a three-month public portfolio management contest

It's really easy to say "test hypotheses rigorously" and "assume nothing."
It's a lot harder to do in practice, and there are sometimes false positives and false negatives.

PR and snazzy launches: sometimes appropriate, sometimes not.

A good idea doesn't necessarily make a great business. => Steve's example: renting zoo animals for birthday parties

Biz dev is dead (at least for the consumer web) => you don't need it to get scale anymore (and if you do, you probably have the wrong idea)

Get the best VC investors you can => big funds = follow-on investment, smart advisors (caveat: coming from a former EiR at Accel, Steve Carpenter)

Blog/do other things to build personal credibility.

The economics of being a founder at a startup (as opposed to an early hire) are phenomenal. For 6-10 months of additional risk, founder gets tremendous upside.

"I am never going to raise friends and family money again." -- Steve Carpenter

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