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Dalton + MichaelDalton + Michael

Real vs Fake Startups

What is the difference between a "real" vs a "fake" startup? In this video, Dalton and Michael discuss the difference between founders doing the real work of building and talking to customers vs pretending, and offer guidance for how founders should think about role models. As Michael says, its never too late to fix! Dalton + Michael is brought to you by @Standard_Cap Dalton Caldwell on X: https://x.com/daltonc Michael Seibel on X: https://x.com/mwseibel

Dalton CaldwellhostMichael Seibelhost
Dec 1, 20259mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. DC

    I have encouraged a lot of founders building technical tools, you know, developer tools, to spend a lot of time posting about their thing and telling the world about it.

  2. MS

    Yeah.

  3. DC

    Because if no one knows that your technology exists, it's kinda game over.

  4. MS

    Yeah.

  5. DC

    And the, the, the best technologies are good at marketing, whether you admit it or not. [upbeat music]

  6. MS

    Welcome to Dalton + Michael. Today we're gonna talk about real startups versus fake startups. In this video, I'm gonna say nice things, and Dalton's gonna make people mad. [laughs]

  7. DC

    [laughs] I hope not.

  8. MS

    What, what is the definition? I hear [laughs] there's a guy-

  9. DC

    Yeah.

  10. MS

    What's the definition of a fake startup? [laughs]

  11. DC

    Oh, okay. So you're setting me up.

  12. MS

    [laughs] I mean, I might be setting you up.

  13. DC

    Let's start with the extremes.

  14. MS

    Let's-

  15. DC

    Right? Like, with the cartoonish extremes.

  16. MS

    Yes.

  17. DC

    So a cartoonishly extreme fake startup-

  18. MS

    Yes

  19. DC

    ... is a startup that never builds a product and never writes any code.

  20. MS

    Nope.

  21. DC

    It hires lots of people.

  22. MS

    Some-

  23. DC

    The founders are on the 30 Under 30 list somehow.

  24. MS

    [laughs] Somehow.

  25. DC

    [laughs]

  26. MS

    That was a, that was a high priority. [laughs]

  27. DC

    Some- somehow that's their main work product.

  28. MS

    [laughs]

  29. DC

    The founders have raised money-

  30. MS

    Yeah

Episode duration: 9:03

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