Complementary Skills Same Values
HiringSeek a partner who brings different technical or operational skills but shares the same underlying drive, culture, and work ethic.
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Hall of Masters
Andrew Chen
앤드루 첸
General partner at Andreessen Horowitz, author of The Cold Start Problem
809 records in all
- Principles 305
- Episodes 139
- Quotes 365
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Principles
46 basic records of 305
Principles are our summary of their public statements.
Poll your audience for clarity
ContentWhen unsure if a specific content format or automation is providing value, ask the audience directly through polls and comments.
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Track the full conversion funnel
MarketingA founder must monitor every step from registration to active usage, payment page visits, and final transaction completions to identify where users drop off.
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Practice Vuja De
LearningDeliberately look at familiar products or industries with fresh eyes to avoid missing the next big cycle.
Supporting quotes
Meet 5 new people per day, every day. It helped that working at a venture firm is all about networking, so I picked aggressive goal!
Source Andrew Chen 10 Years, 2007 (opens in a new tab)
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Adopt a Quantitative Growth Approach
MarketingEntrepreneurs should treat user acquisition as a quantitative challenge, focusing on viral loops and cost-per-acquisition metrics rather than just intuition.
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Apprentice under proven masters
CareerThe most effective way to learn a complex discipline like growth hacking is to work directly for people who have already scaled products to millions of users.
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Prioritize free distribution channels
MarketingStartups should focus on mastering virality because it provides a free way to acquire users compared to paid channels like SEO or SEM.
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Focus on High Retention Features
ProductEven simple features can drive daily active usage if they solve a consistent, recurring need like background music for work.
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Onboard small businesses
StrategyBringing small and medium-sized businesses into the digital advertising ecosystem represents a significant market opportunity.
Write to Sharpen Your Mind
WritingUse writing and answering difficult questions as a tool to clarify and improve one's own internal logic and decision-making.
Supporting quotes
I know there are problems that folks are facing which, if they had a short conversation, could help them skip months of turmoil.
Source Andrew Chen Reader question: Why answer questions? at andrewchen (opens in a new tab)
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Humanize Your Data
CustomersMove beyond looking at abstract metrics like subscriber counts by engaging in direct, specific conversations with individual customers or readers.
Supporting quotes
I know there are problems that folks are facing which, if they had a short conversation, could help them skip months of turmoil.
Source Andrew Chen Reader question: Why answer questions? at andrewchen (opens in a new tab)
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Look beyond simple ad revenue
StrategyA business relying solely on AdSense may generate steady income but often lacks the scalability required for venture capital investment.
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Simplicity Is an Expensive Investment
ProductCreating a simple and elegant product takes significantly more time, iterations, and money than building a complex one.
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Eliminate Design Politics Through Vision
StrategyA strong central vision from the top prevents great products from being diluted by committees, consensus-driven compromises, and internal politics.
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Product as an Incentive System
ProductView product design as a way to create incentives that guide users toward specific actions while maintaining high engagement.
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Prioritize Retention Over Engagement
ProductA founder should prioritize long-term user retention as the primary metric rather than getting distracted by superficial engagement numbers.
Supporting quotes
Forget about user engagement - just focus on retention!
Source Andrew Chen Taking A Quick Blog Vacation (opens in a new tab)
Build utility before the network
ProductCreate a tool that provides value to a single user immediately, even if no one else is using the platform yet.
Supporting quotes
Instagram started off as a standalone tool. In doing so, the product provides 'single-user' utility to the user even when other users aren't around
Source Andrew Chen Social Products Win With Utility Not Invites Guest Post (opens in a new tab)
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Disruptive Free Models Create Value
StrategyA company gains strategic value by offering for free what competitors charge for, forcing incumbents to pay attention.
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Use lead bullets before silver bullets
MarketingIn the pre-product/market fit stage, rely on hard-to-scale techniques like PR, community building, and expert intuition rather than searching for a single growth hack.
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Bridge the Empathy Gap
CustomersBuilding for an audience different from oneself requires daily interaction or a co-founder who belongs to that target demographic. Without direct empathy, a founder risks forcing incorrect assumptions onto the users.
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