Competition is good, or at least not an extinction risk; over half of billion-dollar startups competed with large incumbents at the time of founding. It’s good to compete with incumbents or compete in fragmented markets; they are easier to beat than a highly funded startup with the same idea. Remember Zoom’s founder telling the story of competing a

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I noticed four distinct paths to effectively validating a startup idea:

1. The do-it-manually path: Don’t build anything—solve the problem manually first, for a small number of companies


2. The listening path: First talk to tons of potential users, and then start building


3. The prototype path: Start building a prototype and then co-create it with a small n

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The ideas that became billion-dollar companies didn’t fit any specific archetype. Some founders acted as missionaries, solving their personal problems, but many startups were the result of deliberate ideation and were opportunity driven. Successful founders rarely tell the stories of the days when they were jumping from one idea to another to find

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