
The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters (2007) - mobitar
http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html
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thebiglebrewski
"There is one high-profile, highly successful software entrepreneur right now
who is burning through something like $80 million in venture funding in his
latest startup and has practically nothing to show for it except for some
great press clippings and a couple of beta customers -- because there is
virtually no market for what he is building."

Anyone know who this was now?! hehe

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ziszis
Groupon is a great counter to consider in terms of the product-market fit
theory. Few companies have ever had the product-market that Groupon had
"Groupon is so effective that Mason claims Groupon now has 35,000 companies
clamoring to be on its roster. Only one in eight applicants makes the cut."
[0]

Instead a better model is to think about having a great product in a great
market has phase 1. But if the company can't create a moat it still dies. "One
problem with the Groupon model: Anyone can replicate it. More than 200 copycat
sites have sprung up in the U.S., with another 500 overseas, including 100 in
China."[0]

[0] [https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-
groupo...](https://www.forbes.com/forbes/2010/0830/entrepreneurs-groupon-
facebook-twitter-next-web-phenom.html)

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packetslave
For those who might be unaware, "pmarca" = Marc Andreessen, formerly of
Netscape, now a heavyweight VC with A16Z.

~~~
xiaoma
For those too young to remember Netscape, this means he was the guy who made
the first two web browsers that made it outside of academia and into
widespread use. As a result, there are web tags we use because he (or his
employees) put them in. JavaScript was created at Netscape, too.

~~~
devnonymous
ehm... Also the guy to guise opposition to net neutrality as just being
fervently anti-colonisim

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adventured
This:

"Personally, I'll take the third position -- I'll assert that market is the
most important factor in a startup's success or failure."

seems to be at potential odds with what I've seen Marc say in a lot of recent
interviews he has done. Over and over again, he'll very specifically focus on
the people being the single most important thing, when he discusses what
matters the most.

For example, he reiterates this point about people again the other day ("most
of what we do is evaluate people"), in this excellent Bloomberg interview
podcast:

[https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-05-19/interview-
wi...](https://www.bloomberg.com/news/audio/2017-05-19/interview-with-marc-
andreessen-masters-in-business-audio)

~~~
nostrademons
He may be adjusting his message for the audience.

When he wrote this blog series, he was writing for entrepreneurs, and
specifically entrepreneurs that a16z might want to fund. When you're an
entrepreneur, a.) you can't do anything about the people anyway, because it's
_you_ and you can't exactly get rid of yourself and b.) one way that you _can_
improve the founding team if you are it is to make decisions that will put you
in a big market that needs what you're making. And entrepreneurs that listen
to that and heed it will be good candidates for the service that a16z is
offering, which is support in scaling a company to take advantage of a big
market.

When you talk to the press, you _always_ want to talk about people first,
because you come across as callous and nerdy otherwise. Journalism is all
about finding the human angle; if you frame what you do as "we find good
people and support them", you get a lot more public support than if you frame
it as "we find unexploited market opportunities and exploit them."

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andrewprock
As one might expect, these sort of oversimplifications are make great
headlines, but aren't usually actionable. Data and metrics which validate
hypotheses like this should be the standard we strive to meet.

See also: The only thing that matters is oxygen - unless, of course, you are
anaerobic.

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neom
I think this is totally true, and often consider it myself when thinking about
the startup I work for. I use it as kind of a north star in decision making to
make sure we don't lose our way. The way I think about it is solutions are for
consultants, products are for problems. And if you're really lucky, you're
solving a problem people don't know they have yet just before they become
aware. When you build this way, you get sucked along by market inertia. I
thought about this a lot when I worked at DigitalOcean. I think we did a great
job because we cared, but in the back of my mind I always kinda wondered if we
had to, the market was growing faster than we could have addressed it at.

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andqok
Striking similarity to Sun Tzu's advice: know enemy, and know youself. There's
a special emphasis in "The Art of War" that you can't win, even in full
strength, if the enemy doesn't expose some weakness. Here Marc rehashes this
very idea, that your preparation isn't enough. Instead, to meet enemy's
weakness is critical. This ancient idea doesn't require any exceptional
intelligence to understand. The hard part is actually discern this weakness,
or market.

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frankstella
This is a much better version:
[http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html](http://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html)

~~~
dang
Ok, we'll change to that from
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-
pmarca-gu-2.html). Thanks!

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blueyes
What if they were all necessary conditions of success, and each insufficient
by themselves? One of the main reason startups fail is founder conflict (lack
of team), and many teams have trouble building something that actually works
(lack of product). The market can't "pull the product out" of a dysfunctional
group of incompetents.

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marcosdumay
For people trying to navigate that page:

Part 1:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070704165700/http://blog.pmarca...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070704165700/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the_pmarca_guid_1.html)

Part 2:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070625210316/http://blog.pmarca...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070625210316/http://blog.pmarca.com:80/2007/06/the_pmarca_guid_2.html#comment-73277060)

Part 3:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070702024023/http://blog.pmarca...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070702024023/http://blog.pmarca.com:80/2007/06/the-
pmarca-gu-1.html)

Part 4 (this):
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070701074943/http://blog.pmarca.com/2007/06/the-
pmarca-gu-2.html)

Part 5:
[http://web.archive.org/web/20070701154836/http://blog.pmarca...](http://web.archive.org/web/20070701154836/http://blog.pmarca.com:80/2007/06/the-
pmarca-gu-3.html#comments)

