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My First MillionMy First Million

How To Come Up With Billion Dollar Business Ideas | Hubspot Co-Founder Dharmesh Shah

No more small boy spreadsheets, build your business on the free HubSpot CRM: https://mfmpod.link/hrd - Sam Parr (@TheSamParr) and Shaan Puri (@ShaanVP) talk to Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot, Dharmesh Shah (@dharmesh), about why a bad economy is a good time to start a business, creating an alternative to Wordle, and the trillion dollar Venn diagram of success. Also, want $5,000? Check out the My First Million Clips contest (https://www.mfmpod.com/p/clips/). — Check Out Shaan's Stuff: • Shaan's weekly email - https://www.shaanpuri.com • Visit https://www.somewhere.com/mfm to hire global talent (like Shaan does) and get $500 off for being an MFM listener. Hire developers, assistants, marketing pros, sales teams and more for 80% less than their US equivalents. — Check Out Sam's Stuff: • Hampton - https://www.joinhampton.com/ • Ideation Bootcamp - https://www.ideationbootcamp.co/ • Copy That - https://copythat.com • Hampton Wealth Survey - https://joinhampton.com/wealth 💰 Pitch your startup for a shot at a $1M investment with Sam Parr as the MC https://clickhubspot.com/pitch ----- Links: * HubSpot - https://www.hubspot.com * Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy article - http://www.paulgraham.com/badeconomy.html * WordPlay - https://wordplay.com * Shaan's Maven writing course - https://maven.com/generalist/writing * Shaan tweet about starting the next Pixar - https://twitter.com/ShaanVP/status/1541517141672833026?s=20&t=3cn4kPT4NVCfmlrCx_j9xA 📧: Sign up for The Hustle Daily Newsletter: https://mfmpod.link/ru5 🎙️: Download Our Podcast: https://link.chtbl.com/RQX2bowQ A podcast where we brainstorm new business ideas based on trends & opportunities we see in the market. Sometimes we have famous guests, and they do it with us. ----- Show Notes: (00:00) - Intro (01:08) - Why renting is better than owning (23:20) - Framework for three types of employees (33:25) - Why Dharmesh built WordPlay (01:06:10) - Driving value through an intersection of skills (Trillion dollar Venn diagram) (01:10:25) - Why Shaan is starting the next Pixar ------- For more quality videos subscribe here ➡https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyaN6mg5u8Cjy2ZI4ikWaug?sub_confirmation=1 🔔 Turn on notifications to stay updated with new uploads #shorts #youtubeshorts Like || Share || Subscribe

Dharmesh ShahguestSam ParrhostShaan Purihost
Jul 12, 20221h 28mWatch on YouTube ↗

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At a glance

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Dharmesh Shah on Rare Skill Combos, Iteration, and Courage

  1. Dharmesh Shah argues that downturns can be a good time to start a company because talent and marketing channels become cheaper, and startups must win hires through arbitrage rather than salary.
  2. He describes HubSpot's early hiring approach of smart, action-oriented people, avoiding 'press release hires', and a framework of creatives, completers and collaborators.
  3. He tells the story of building the Wordle-like game WordPlay for his 11-year-old son, which grew to millions of players and could have earned about $90,000 a month in ads.
  4. Dharmesh explains his philosophy on time valuation, quick angel investing for fun and bragging rights, and staying unfazed by large paper losses in HubSpot stock.
  5. He closes with his 'trillion dollar Venn diagram' of rare, mutually reinforcing skills, plus the roles of courage, skill over talent, and fast feedback loops, illustrated by Shaan's Pixar idea and the marshmallow challenge.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Down economies can favor startups

Dharmesh says layoffs free up talent and less venture money lowers costs like ad spend, so he is net positive on starting a company in a downturn.

Startups win talent through arbitrage, not salary

Dharmesh says founders must either offer superstar talent something they can't get elsewhere, like learning and a future co-founder network, or spot rising talent early.

Hire for drive over résumé

HubSpot sought smart people with a predilection for action and avoided 'press release hires,' while Sam and Shaan favored obsessive, quirky people.

Rare, reinforcing skill intersections create outsized value

Dharmesh says combining skills multiplies rarity, and the best additions are rare and also reinforce skills you already have, like software plus copywriting.

Courage and learnable skills matter more than talent

Shaan argues most people lack the courage to try, and Dharmesh adds that talent is just the rate of learning a skill, so most things can be broken down and learned.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

I think of venture capital as a very efficient machine of turning, like, money from LPs into Google AdWords revenue, right?

— Dharmesh Shah

If we felt like we ever hired someone that was worthy of a press release, we did it wrong, right?

— Dharmesh Shah

I think the outcome is a combination of, like, dreaming really big and, like, iterating really small, and having tight feedbacks loops.

— Dharmesh Shah

Skill is something that's learnable. Talent is the rate at which you can acquire a particular skill.

— Dharmesh Shah

Let's ship it today. Let's see how bad it sucks, and then let's remove some suck from it, and like tomorrow it'll suck a little less, and then tomorrow it'll suck a little less again.

— Shaan Puri

Renting versus owningStarting a startup in a recessionHiring diamonds in the roughCreatives, completers and collaboratorsWordPlay side projectAngel investing and time valuationTrillion dollar Venn diagram of skills

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