Chris Dixon

Principles are our summary of their public statements.

• Apply Regret Minimization

  Decisions

  Decide whether to quit by asking if you would regret seeing another entrepreneur succeed with the same idea after you abandoned it.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source When Should You Give Up On An Idea, 2012  (opens in a new tab)

• Enable granular price tiering

  Pricing

  Offer products at various price points to capture value from both casual fans and diehard supporters who are willing to pay more.

  Supporting quotes

  • “The economics of low take rates plus enthusiastic fandom does wonders. On Substack, 1,000 newsletter subscribers paying $10/month nets over $100K/year to the writer.”

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

• Recognize visionary historical precedents

  Learning

  Study historical predictions to understand that transformative technologies often take decades to move from vision to reality.

  1 more supporting quote is in the member records.

  Source A Man Will Be Able To Carry One In His Vest Pocket, 2014  (opens in a new tab)

• Maintain Information Asymmetry on Price

  Negotiation

  Founders should have a minimum acceptable valuation in mind but never disclose it to investors to avoid setting a low ceiling or scaring them off.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Best Practices For Raising A Vc Round, 2011  (opens in a new tab)

• Scale through global connectivity

  Strategy

  Founders should recognize that the internet makes the addressable market for any product orders-of-magnitude larger than in the past.

  Source Lessons From The Pc Video Game Industry, 2015  (opens in a new tab)

• Unbundle broad platforms into verticals

  Strategy

  Instead of competing with a massive horizontal platform, founders should target a specific category and build a deeper, better experience for that niche.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Some Problems Are So Hard They Need To Be Solved Piece By Piece, 2012  (opens in a new tab)

• Beware of adaptable horizontal incumbents

  Competition

  Vertical startups must be cautious when the horizontal incumbent is capable of adapting and integrating vertical features, as Google did with news and video.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Some Problems Are So Hard They Need To Be Solved Piece By Piece, 2012  (opens in a new tab)

• Reject the Exit Strategy Mindset

  Mindset

  Focus on building an important, long-term company rather than cobbling something together just to sell it quickly.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Is Now A Good Time To Start A Company, 2009  (opens in a new tab)

• Incentivize quality over quantity

  Product

  Successful knowledge systems must provide proper incentives for users to contribute while ensuring those contributions make the system smarter, not just larger.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source A16z Invests In Stack Exchange, 2015  (opens in a new tab)

• Embrace Competitors for Category Validation

  Strategy

  A direct competitor can help the market recognize a new product type as its own category rather than a subset of an old one.

  1 more supporting quote is in the member records.

  Source The Challenge Of Creating A New Category, 2009  (opens in a new tab)

• Show obsession through proactive work

  Career

  To break into a competitive field, perform the work before you have the job. Create investment lists and research projects to prove you are obsessed with the industry.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Getting A Job In Venture Capital, 2009  (opens in a new tab)

• Founding is the best credential

  Career

  Starting a company is the most effective way to gain the experience and credibility needed for venture capital, regardless of whether the startup succeeds.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Getting A Job In Venture Capital, 2009  (opens in a new tab)

• Prioritize Community Density

  Customers

  Focus on a group of people who already interact frequently so the product becomes useful immediately despite a small user base.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source The bowling pin strategy, 2010  (opens in a new tab)

• Interface Shifts Create New Categories

  Finding ideas

  Every major shift in user interface leads to the invention of entirely new classes of productivity applications native to that platform.

  Supporting quotes

  • “If the historical pattern repeats, productivity apps that are "native" to the tablet will be invented.”

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

• Distinguish intent from volume

  Marketing

  A small amount of traffic with high commercial intent can generate more revenue than a massive audience with no interest in buying.

  Supporting quotes

  • “The lesson is that the RPMs* of online ads are directly proportional to the degree** to which the user has purchasing intent”

  1 more supporting quote is in the member records.

• Pitch directly as a founder

  Marketing

  Avoid hiring PR firms in the early stages because journalists prefer direct communication from founders and it shows competence.

  Supporting quotes

  • “Most journalists, when talking candidly, will tell you they'd vastly prefer getting an email from the founder of a startup than a PR firm.”

  1 more supporting quote is in the member records.

• Treat early hires as founders

  Hiring

  Early-stage startups should grant significantly more equity to their first engineers to compete with the option of them starting their own companies.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Recruiting Programmers To Your Startup, 2011  (opens in a new tab)

• Human Curation Over Algorithms

  Product

  Social graphs are harder to manipulate than search algorithms because they rely on human trust rather than keyword density.

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

  Source Search And The Social Graph, 2009  (opens in a new tab)

• Create in Private

  Creativity

  Avoid sharing early-stage ideas too soon, as the fear of judgment can stifle the necessary process of generating many bad ideas to find a good one.

  Supporting quotes

  • “The presence of others can only inhibit [the creative] process, since creation is embarrassing.”

  2 more supporting quotes are in the member records.

• Innovation is not a fixed resource

  Strategy

  The total value of the startup ecosystem can grow if more innovation is fostered, rather than assuming market exits are constant.

  1 more supporting quote is in the member records.

  Source Every Time An Engineer Joins Google A Startup Dies, 2010  (opens in a new tab)