Molson Hart

I’m currently rereading Zero to One for my book club. Thiel argues that all significant fortunes are built by building something new that totally avoids competition (or at least addresses a problem in a completely new way from preexisting competition).

It passes a logical smell test. If something were not new, then it would already exist. If something exists it is already for sale. Therefore you are competing. If you are competing in an undifferentiated way, the lowest price wins and the producer loses.

Okay that’s great, but does it prove out in life? It does in my own. All the money I’ve ever made can be traced back to three different ideas I had. One in 2011, one in 2014, and one in 2016. Once I had the idea, it didn’t actually take much work for it to start raining money.

Execution on new ideas that avoid competition is way easier than execution in a competitive old space. So maybe that saying is wrong. Success is more inspiration than perspiration.

I met with Don Valentine once as a young pup. He told he (paraphrased): “I invest in opportunities more than teams. You can put the best team in the world up against a crappy market. You’ll get a crappy result. But put that team in a great opportunity, you get magic.”

Is it just me or is this kind of the opposite of the SV mantra invest in people not products/ideas?

There are three main “lens” for investing in startups: - people first - market first - tech first Funny thing is there are investors who have done amazing using each. DV was market-first.