The Builders NotesThe Fastest Way To Get Promoted (Career Cheat Codes) MFM
First things first, you want to consider your role as working with, not "for someone". When you work "with someone", you aim to grow together.
The Builders NotesMark Cuban
The only orientation that moves anything is action.
The Builders NotesStories are the best marketers (Part 2)
This is how you control how people feel about your product.
The Builders Notes offers a curated collection of Notes from High-level business, and entrepreneurship podcasts, and videos, conveniently delivered to your email, three times a month.
The Builders NotesThe Fastest Way To Get Promoted (Career Cheat Codes) MFM
First things first, you want to consider your role as working with, not "for someone". When you work "with someone", you aim to grow together.
The Builders NotesMark Cuban
The only orientation that moves anything is action.
The Builders NotesStories are the best marketers (Part 2)
This is how you control how people feel about your product.
The Builders Notes offers a curated collection of Notes from High-level business, and entrepreneurship podcasts, and videos, conveniently delivered to your email, three times a month.
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This podcast is a discussion with Alex Dang (Senior AdvisorMcKinsey & Company), who co-wrote the new book "The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth" and the HBR article "Make Decisions with a VC Mindset."
HBR IdeaCast POdcast with Alex Dang
Link to the full pod: HBR IdeaCast Podcast
This pod, explores how VCs make decisions, how they seek value, and what makes them tick. The conversation opens with asking Alex Dan why he chose VC as his niche.
For Dan, decision-making is very different and unique because of the responsibility it carries and its ability to bring forth 80% of the largest companies out there.
The willingness to fail is one of the strongest factors that matter to VCs. They make decisions with the understanding that things will and should fail.
The way of thinking is not about individual companies or specific startups but about assessing risk—how many startups can they take on and manage the associated risks.
For VCs a thing they look out for is the anti-portfolio. This relates to the ideas or projects they chose not to pursue.
How this is done is, you reflect on the ideas you filtered out before as bad and the ones you chose to work on. Afterward, look to see the outcomes of those projects, those who you went with, and the ideas you didn't choose.
Analyze the environment surrounding those outcomes, you are currently observing, good or bad, If you see that an idea you passed on as not good( meaning a bad idea) succeeded elsewhere, it's worth reevaluating your decision.
In relation to coming up with path-breaking ideas or decisions that lead to innovations rather than following the general working consensus, it's important to note that when it comes to new technology and new business, following a general consensus can be dangerous. VC firms often have a team dedicated to going the opposite way, directly opposing what everyone else has agreed on.
Another concept is the devil's advocate, also known as the red team. The devil's advocate's job is to challenge the idea, finding as many ways as possible that it could fail. These individuals may not always be seen as team players, but they are crucial to the team's success. However, these team members must be alternated constantly, change some people in the red team to the Blue team, and so on.
Another important aspect is the consensus-minus-x rule. This means that an investment will be approved even if only one of seven people agrees. As long as that one person brought up the idea, a level of investment will be made towards that idea, whether it’s seed investment or partnership of some sorts. This ensures that innovative ideas are given a chance.
In regards to improving decision-making, keep the team as small as possible.
Allow junior members to speak first so that when the boss speaks, it doesn't bias thoughts.
Provide feedback and read about the companies ahead of time.
At Amazon, for large teams, they follow the "two pizza rule", if two pizzas can't feed the team, then the team is too large. Ten is the closest to a big team, if it's more than ten, the team should be reassessed.
VCs often ask for individual feedback about a company before a general meeting and record it. This way, when everyone meets, they can see at what point they changed their minds compared to their initial feedback. And what questions might have caused this change of mindset.
VCs ask the experts to speak last in meetings because it helps the rest of the team voice their opinions without fear of starting an argument with the experts.
Set ambitious timelines for making these decisions.
VCs often give out 100 no's for every yes they say. One key method is by asking, "Why should we not invest in X startup?" Adding "not" allows red flags to appear faster than asking, "Why should we invest?"
This approach can be used for ideas, projects, and hiring.
Thank you for reading!
Since this is a closed community, I kindly ask one thing: could you please take a screenshot of your personal best part of today's notes, something that challenged your thoughts, and share it with me?
You can do this by emailing them, sending them via WhatsApp, or making a tweet about them and tagging me @D_rounz. Thank you!
This podcast is a discussion with Alex Dang (Senior AdvisorMcKinsey & Company), who co-wrote the new book "The Venture Mindset: How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth" and the HBR article "Make Decisions with a VC Mindset."
HBR IdeaCast POdcast with Alex Dang
Link to the full pod: HBR IdeaCast Podcast
This pod, explores how VCs make decisions, how they seek value, and what makes them tick. The conversation opens with asking Alex Dan why he chose VC as his niche.
For Dan, decision-making is very different and unique because of the responsibility it carries and its ability to bring forth 80% of the largest companies out there.
The willingness to fail is one of the strongest factors that matter to VCs. They make decisions with the understanding that things will and should fail.
The way of thinking is not about individual companies or specific startups but about assessing risk—how many startups can they take on and manage the associated risks.
For VCs a thing they look out for is the anti-portfolio. This relates to the ideas or projects they chose not to pursue.
How this is done is, you reflect on the ideas you filtered out before as bad and the ones you chose to work on. Afterward, look to see the outcomes of those projects, those who you went with, and the ideas you didn't choose.
Analyze the environment surrounding those outcomes, you are currently observing, good or bad, If you see that an idea you passed on as not good( meaning a bad idea) succeeded elsewhere, it's worth reevaluating your decision.
In relation to coming up with path-breaking ideas or decisions that lead to innovations rather than following the general working consensus, it's important to note that when it comes to new technology and new business, following a general consensus can be dangerous. VC firms often have a team dedicated to going the opposite way, directly opposing what everyone else has agreed on.
Another concept is the devil's advocate, also known as the red team. The devil's advocate's job is to challenge the idea, finding as many ways as possible that it could fail. These individuals may not always be seen as team players, but they are crucial to the team's success. However, these team members must be alternated constantly, change some people in the red team to the Blue team, and so on.
Another important aspect is the consensus-minus-x rule. This means that an investment will be approved even if only one of seven people agrees. As long as that one person brought up the idea, a level of investment will be made towards that idea, whether it’s seed investment or partnership of some sorts. This ensures that innovative ideas are given a chance.
In regards to improving decision-making, keep the team as small as possible.
Allow junior members to speak first so that when the boss speaks, it doesn't bias thoughts.
Provide feedback and read about the companies ahead of time.
At Amazon, for large teams, they follow the "two pizza rule", if two pizzas can't feed the team, then the team is too large. Ten is the closest to a big team, if it's more than ten, the team should be reassessed.
VCs often ask for individual feedback about a company before a general meeting and record it. This way, when everyone meets, they can see at what point they changed their minds compared to their initial feedback. And what questions might have caused this change of mindset.
VCs ask the experts to speak last in meetings because it helps the rest of the team voice their opinions without fear of starting an argument with the experts.
Set ambitious timelines for making these decisions.
VCs often give out 100 no's for every yes they say. One key method is by asking, "Why should we not invest in X startup?" Adding "not" allows red flags to appear faster than asking, "Why should we invest?"
This approach can be used for ideas, projects, and hiring.
Thank you for reading!
Since this is a closed community, I kindly ask one thing: could you please take a screenshot of your personal best part of today's notes, something that challenged your thoughts, and share it with me?
You can do this by emailing them, sending them via WhatsApp, or making a tweet about them and tagging me @D_rounz. Thank you!
drounz.
drounz.
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