In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield. - Warren Buffet
Tinkering with a Raspberry Pi, December 2024, Taiwan.
Last updated: March 22, 2025
Experience teaches best - through actions, through words. I'm listing what I've picked up here.
Be opinionated
Have a clear vision of how things should be.
Hold the key relationships
Your business rises or falls on relationships. Don't delegate crucial partnerships to others.
Play long-term game
Quarterly thinking creates temporary success. Find partners who think in decades, not quarters.
Don't outsource hiring
The wrong cultural fit costs more than an empty seat. Every hiring decision shapes your culture permanently. Outsourced recruiting optimizes for skills.
Think deeply about who to be friends with
Don't deepen every relationship - be careful of slick talkers. Your network becomes your net worth.
Learn delegation
Your calendar reflects your priorities. Identify what only you can do, then ruthlessly delegate everything else.
Management is also time
Talent needs direction. High performers require context, not control. Budget time for leadership before adding headcount.
Be careful what you say
Casual comments become company doctrine. Speak with intention, knowing everything will be remembered and repeated.
Invite genius minds as advisors
Give them shares to leverage their connections and ideas. The right advisor brings networks that money can't buy.
Build systems, not dependencies
If your business falls apart when you take a week off, you've built a job, not a company. Create processes that don't depend on specific individuals.
Start with ESOP as soon as possible
Turn your team members into shareholders. When team members think like owners, they make decisions like owners.
Read the market and don't mess with giants
Don't piss off the blue chips - become indispensable, not threatening.
Recognize hidden costs
Partnerships, hires, and projects all carry maintenance costs that compound over time.
Don't find a BD person until a certain level
Train teams to be business guys. Everyone should understand how value is created and captured.
Cultivate strategic ignorance
Not everything deserves your attention. Deliberately ignore distractions that don't serve your core mission.
Always check backgrounds
VCs, media outlets, team members… understand the reasons why they've worked - if they have no idea about what they've done - don't work with them as a partner.
Keep the standard high
Don't work with salesy, fluffy guys under any conditions.
Don't trust anyone 100%
Trust but verify—always. Good intentions don't prevent mistakes.
Play the level of Silicon Valley
Benchmark against the best, not with local standards - find the best and play their game.
Always own your distribution
Media, PR and all. Build these channels before you need them.
OpSec is the most critical thing
No exceptions. What competitors know about you determines your vulnerability.
Marketing can kill startups
Hype kills - premature scaling is deadly. Market when you can deliver, not when you want attention.
Architecture is for teams, not users
Users care about results, not your tech stack. Perfect code that ships late is worthless. Ship, iterate, improve—in that order