Startup insights from Jeff Bezos, Doug Leone, Peter Thiel, Ben Silbermann, and Jason Fried

Every Sunday, we send out 1 free insight + 4 new bonus insights for premium subscribers (upgrade to Premium for $5/mo here).

Today’s insights:

1. Jeff Bezos explains why the first thing to do before starting a company is write a business plan

2. Sequoia’s Doug Leone explains what he looks for in a startup founder

3. Peter Thiel recounts the most important moment in the history of Facebook

4. Ben Silbermann explains how Pinterest found product/market fit

5. Basecamp founder Jason Fried: “If customers trust your apologies, you’re doing a lot of things right.”

Jeff Bezos explains why the first thing to do before starting a company is write a business plan

“That blank sheet of paper stage is one of the hardest stages. And one of the reasons it’s hard is because at that stage, there’s nobody counting on you but yourself. It’s really just you. And you can quit at any time. Nobody’s going to care. And so you set about doing the simple things first. You want to start a company? Well, the first thing you do is you should write a business plan.”

Before starting Amazon, Jeff wrote a 30-page business plan. He explains why:

“The business plan won’t survive its first encounters with reality… Reality will never be the plan. But the discipline of writing the plan forces you to think through some of the issues and to get mentally comfortable in the space.”

Full video: Manufacturing Intellect “Jeff Bezos interview on Starting Amazon (2001)“ (Oct 2001)

Sequoia’s Doug Leone explains what he looks for in a startup founder

“I think entrepreneurs—like investors—come in different flavors. And I will tell you, as I told my kids, that if you’re desperate, it’s a great asset. If you have too many choices in life, it clouds your thinking. When you have only one way to go and that’s forward, it’s very easy. You just go, go, go. Failure is truly not an option.”

Doug and Sequoia also look for people who’ve done quirky things and taken risks rather than “followed the same tracks” as everyone else.

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