This past week was my first week living in San Francisco. It felt great to bike into the office in the mornings from Twin Peaks but it took a little to get used to taking a shower in the office building after a workout. I learned from smart people and had interesting chats, here are some takeaways.
My biggest takeaway from hearing Josh Reeves, Gusto’s CEO, speak at a fireside chat organized by South Park Commons was that you gotta focus on a real problem that’s painful and big to build a solution worth building a company for. I already knew this but it was nice to have it be re-emphasized by Gusto’s CEO.
Josh was also an incredible communicator. Throughout the hour long interview I barely heard him use filler words, and all his answers were put together and flowed crisply. It is hard to communicate like that but it is hypercritical to do so if you want to be an effective leader of something meaningful.
In the early days, Gusto after identifying a problem built a solution for just 1 or 2 customers. This was to prove to the customers that they could build something. Similarly, Rome after having talked to a few customers focused on building something to solve some problem of the 1 customer he was talking to. This helped him gain the trust of his first customer that he can build something and is not selling snake oil.
Startups are a group of people organized around a secret - Paul Graham. A secret can be an insight, a problem, a new way of doing something that you have figured out that your competitors haven’t. You don’t need a secret to start but you need one to succeed.
If something worked for a person it doesn't necessarily mean following the same path will work for you. There are no rules in life. There is no playbook to success. Of Course there are common themes in every successful person - hard work, working with great people, determination. But there is no one path to success. Chart your own.