The Start-up of You is a step by step guide to building your career, or business, like a world class Silicon Valley entrepreneur. Think of yourself as the founder of at least one living, growing startup venture: your career.
Favorite Quote
"ABZ Planning is simply an adaptive planning technique that promotes trial and error. Plan A is the plan you're executing currently. Plan B is the plan you'll pivot to if you need to change based on new information, change in market conditions, or new personal aspirations. Finally, Plan Z is your fallback position. This is the 'I lost everything, I'm going to live in my mom's garage' plan and regroup." ~ Reid Hoffman
Key Takeaways
- Your competitive advantage sits at the intersection of three things: your assets (hard and soft), your aspirations and values, and market realities. Being good at something you love doesn't matter if no one will pay for it.
- Always be running ABZ Planning: Plan A is what you're executing now, Plan B is where you pivot when you learn something new, and Plan Z is your fallback if everything goes sideways.
- No one succeeds alone. World-class professionals build networks, and no strategy beats a good team, no matter how brilliant the strategy.
- Weak ties, the people you know but don't talk to often, are frequently the ones who deliver the best opportunities, not your closest inner circle.
- Opportunities are attached to people, not floating out there waiting to be found. Looking for an opportunity really means looking for people.
- Take intelligent, contained risks regularly. Avoiding all risk in a changing world is actually one of the riskiest strategies available.
- Network intelligence beats individual knowledge. Synthesizing input from multiple people in your network almost always beats what you could figure out alone.