“Don’t Chase Unicorns” & 6 Other Lessons I Learned from the book “The Minimalist Entrepreneur” by Sahil Lavingia

1. Don’t Chase Unicorns

The idea here is not that unicorns are evil but that you don’t, necessarily, have to be a unicorn to make an impact.?

Sahil was employee No 2 at Pinterest but left to build his unicorn.

But later redefined what success was for him.

Not chasing unicorns is not about scaling down on your ambition.?

It’s about defining what success means to you & being able to focus on serving your customers.?

Your customers don’t care if you’re a unicorn or not.

They just want their problems solved.

2. Profitability >>> Growth-at-all-Cost

“Profit is oxygen for businesses”

Growth is good. Profit is better. Profitable growth is the best.?

Being profitable allows you to do cool shit on your own terms.?

Just as in your personal life, you are more at peace when you don’t owe people or don’t owe much.

Same with businesses. They are more at peace when they have not taken VC funds.?

VC funds just like personal loans can be good or bad. I’m not against or in support.?

3. Build a Community Before you Build a Business

Community—>Problem—>Product—>Business.?

...in that order.

• Build or join a community.
• Solve problems for that community; expect nothing
• Build a product from the problem. Sell.?
• Create a business from the product as it scales.?

4. Build the smallest Thing Possible

“If you want to build a movie recommendation service, start by telling friends to call you for movie recommendations”?

Keep track of what your friends like & improve from there.

In the book, Sahil talks about how he built Gumroad’s first version over the weekend.?

I get the sense that whatever your idea, you can build a testable prototype in a very short time.

“Every big idea was small at first”

Ship Now. Update, later.

5. Sell to Your First 100 Customers

Charging a fee changes the conversation. This will help you learn about your product.?

1st sell to your family & friends.

2nd sell to your community.

3rd sell to strangers.?

Selling can be tough so treat the process as one of discovery; just like product development.?

By charging a fee, you get to find out if people like your product enough to pay for it or not.?

$0.99 is waaaayyyy different from FREE.?

6. Grow Mindfully

• Don’t spend money you don’t have
• Don’t rent an office you don’t need
• Hire software before humans
• Hire slowly not ambitiously
• Get clear with your cofounder
• Define your values
• Be transparent?

See No 2 above.?

7. “You don’t learn, then start. You start, then learn.

Start.

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