MentalityX

We build, accelerate, and invest in startups and transformational technologies.

[MentalityX @mentality_x]

As @easyBoat_com venture building partner, all of us at @mentality_x are proud to announce the official launch of the easyBoat crowdfunding campaign on crowdbase.

Exciting updates to follow!📣

[Dimitrios Katsouris @dkatsouris]

The efficiency of models/machines in accessing knowledge will be increasingly important in AI moving forward.

[MentalityX @mentality_x]

easyBoat: Δεύτερος γύρος χρηματοδότησης από το Crowdbase https://t.co/wxYcAXS4Qc

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Naval Ravikant on the common thread he sees across the great companies

“[They] were extremely deliberate in every early decision that they made. They were not haphazard. And the reason is because they really felt like they were laying the foundation for a 10-year business. None of them were thinking of it as something they would try and flip… I think that unless you’re extremely forward-looking, in it for the long haul, and you ooze that with every fiber of your being, you’re never going to build a great business.”

Video Source: @twistartups

[GREG ISENBERG @gregisenberg]

My rules for being a founder (after selling 3 companies):

- Pay your invoices fast. People appreciate it
- Recurring meetings are mostly useless
- Your best internet ideas come when you are off the internet
- Create products no one asks for but everyone wants
- Really interesting people apply for Chief of Staff roles
- You need 1000 bad ideas to get to 1 good idea

- Social posts are MVP V1, group chats are MVP V2, products is mvp v3

- Avoid VC unless it's a competitive advantage or you're building deeptech, cleantech, AI chips etc

- Be a rifle not a shotgun. Rifles are targeted, shotguns aren't. The internet rewards targeted products

- Products are like airbnbs. The ones that get booked up the most are the unique experienced ones

- Be a community billionaire. Meaning, create value with many micro-communities

-Buy the ticket, take the chance. My best opportunities came from hopping on a plane to meet someone

- Build communities to avoid reliance on ads

- We’re all in the trust business. Do things that make people trust you

- 100% passive income from startups doesn’t exist.

- Multiple products, multiple revenue streams in case something dries up

- Be the creator or partner with the creator but always have a creator involved

- Freedom from venture, freedom from ads makes me happy. No bosses or micro-bosses

- Do things to put you in the zone to come up with the ideas

- Celebrate all wins, little and big

- Everyone with an internet connection can build an empire

- Be proud or what you're doing or don't do it

- The best ideas are capital light, defendable, have network effects & increased demand

- Dividends > exits

- You can take over your world not the world. Gotta start somewhere niche

- If you can turn your jealousy of others into inspiration of others, you instantly become more productive

- Don’t lose money monthly, make cash flow

- Never call GMV ARR when it's GMV

- Brands: people like brands. Community-based brands: people love brands

- Google Trends/Reddit is a goldmine for startup ideas

- Work with people who will be fun to work with

- Be on time, send cal invites, do the little things

- Whoever is latest to the meeting pays for the coffee, food, drinks.

- Create the things you wish existed

- The most important decision you can make on any given day to be productive: ignore the noise

- "You can get what you want - if you help enough other people get what they want.”

- Every sale has some urgency. No urgency, no sale

- Never care what others think unless it's a loved one

- Sometimes you need to overdose on caffeine, put some headphones on and ship your heart out

- Every startup you start ask yourself what's your unfair advantage. You'll need one

- Checking your email isn't working. People go in these "infinite loops" from app to app checking only to realize the day is over.

- The best products don't necessarily win, the best brand does

- I find all my business partners from either people I grew up with or people I find fascinating on the internet, and nothing in between.

- Find true fans. “10 people who yell make more noise than 10,000 people who are silent”

- My retirement plan. Pick niche. Build community. Create product. Dominate niche. Hire operators. Don't raise venture capital.

- You’d be surprised how many startups spend millions of dollars a year of other people’s money trying to scale a business without an offer that resonates.

- TikTok reviewers are the new search engines.

- Reality is the ultimate "virtual reality”

- Every company is made out of thin air. Anything is possible.

- Find cheerleaders. People above you, people below you, people on your level

- Underspend on material pocessions, overspend on people, experiences, that move you faster

- Some unfair advantages: internet audiences, being "nerdy", spy software, being early

- Create products that reinforce the identity. Those outperform.

- On creating content: the post brings the people, the replies bring the gold

I hope this got you thinking. Reply if it did.

You can follow me @gregisenberg for more.

[Dimitrios Katsouris @dkatsouris]

Who is going to win the AI race?

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Marc Andreessen: Many of the most successful companies started “product first”

“There are products that become companies, and then there are companies that come up with a product. One of the interesting things over the years is that many of the most successful technology franchises were products first, way before they ever became companies.”

In this talk, Marc gives a few examples:

• His team at the University of Illinois worked on the research project that became Netscape for three years before it became a company
• Bill Gates and Paul Allen were deep into PCs before there was a software business
• Jobs and Wozniak built the first Apple computer as hobbyists
• Mark Zuckerberg was running Facebook out of his dorm room before he ever thought of starting a company
• Twitter was a side project at the failed podcasting app Odeo

Marc believes that this “product becomes a company” template is successful because “it’s a demonstration that the product has to exist. The market needs the product so badly that somebody actually built it and deployed it and you can actually see evidence that people want it before there was an economic motivation to do so.”

He contrasts this with the failure cases he often sees when entrepreneurs try to figure out the idea after starting a company.

“It’s very easy in that process to fool yourself into believing that there’s a market because you want to find something and you have a very strong motivation to come up with an answer. It’s hard to go through that process for three months and then say, ‘you know what, we can’t come up with any good ideas.’”

There are of course there exceptions. Marc gives Hewlett Packard as an example. But that’s more the exception than the rule. As Marc explains:

“The moral of the story is it has to be a really good idea. That often will be an idea that is preexisting at the time you decide to start a company. And if it isn’t, be really careful because you’re walking on sharp rocks at that point with a high risk of falling off the cliff into the ocean.”

Source: @ECorner

[Harry Stebbings @HarryStebbings]

Founders create a common enemy for your team. Another company that your team comes into the office everyday wanting to crush.

A mission and vision is all good and well but an enemy is so much more tangible for most to rally against.

[Suhail @Suhail]

I cannot seem to let go how much AI seems to help me learn. Education is going to be completely overhauled with an infinitely patient teacher. Perhaps what will matter more are whether teachers can inspire you to self-motivate than teach you.

[Startup Archive @StartupArchive_]

Naval Ravikant on the importance of hiring high-agency people

Naval defines agency as:

“People who just solve problems without even being asked to solve the problem—they identify the problem, they go solve it, they don’t even necessarily have to update you every step of the way, they’re not asking silly questions, and they’re just coming up with solutions.”

He believes this is important because “building a startup is an infinite set of problems that are being thrown at you.” And there comes a day where you can’t even look at every problem your company is facing—let alone solve every one of them.

He cites the Vinod Khosla aphorism:

"The team you build is the company you build, not the plan you make.”

And your ability to solve problems is based entirely on how many problem-solvers you have at your company. As Naval puts it:

“If you have somebody who takes 10% of your time and management to solve problems, you can only have 10 of those people working with you. But if somebody takes 5%, you can have 20 of those people.”

When building Airchat and AngelList, he thought of each team as a Navy Seal team:

“Everyone is just really good at what they do. They know their job. They do it. They don’t complain. They’re not egotistical about it. And if they have to constantly be corrected, led around by the nose, you have to clean up after them, or you question their judgement, it’s not going to work out.”

[Paul Graham @paulg]

Work on startup ideas that require you to be the way you already are. Then what would in ordinary life be a mere idiosyncrasy can become a unique advantage.

[Dimitrios Katsouris @dkatsouris]

Excited to learn more about EthosAI?

Visit us at 👉 https://t.co/rnqsSQSpmT and join the waiting list 😬

[Paul Graham @paulg]

If you're a hot startup, investors will offer you money on terms so good it would seem crazy to refuse. And yet it will often be the right thing to. Not because of the dilution, but because raising too much will make your company slack and bloated.

[Paul Graham @paulg]

When I talk to startups more than a year or two old, it's remarkable how consistently the biggest source of problems is not competitors but their own employees and investors. Dealing with competitors is easy compared to dealing with the people who are supposed to be helping them.

[MentalityX @mentality_x]

You can’t build a great product without a vision.🚀

Our vision @LabelLens is to be the authentication infrastructure for the new digital world and build what we like to call…

DIGITAL TRUST.

[MentalityX @mentality_x]

A good place to start is putting fundamental processes in place:

⚪️ How do you build a team?
⚪️ How do you run a meeting?
⚪️ How do you hire?

[MentalityX @mentality_x]

New Project Alert 📢

This is one we have been working on for a while now and we are really excited about.

More coming soon🤫

Stay tuned! 🎧

[Paul Graham @paulg]

It's a good sign for a startup's future when they're 7 years in and have a high valuation and the founder can still write "It's a late-night hack, so expect lots of bugs."

[Dimitrios Katsouris @dkatsouris]

Looking forward to talking startups in Crete!

Hope to see you all there!

[Alex Alexakis @alexalexakis]

An updated list of Greek tech communities

80+ communities (meetups, online groups, etc.), most of which seem pretty active. From engineering to product, AI, design, blockchain, and more

Let me know if you see anything missing
https://t.co/gByXpmSSXX

[Paul Graham @paulg]

"I love unsexy startups that just quietly grow."

— Jessica