Drew Houston at Startup School

By chris Oct 31, 2011

Everything big starts small
- Everyone starts out clueless
- Big companies were started by n00bs
- Zuck: Facebook was cool thing #8, but happened to take off
Start of Dropbox
- Inspired by MIT networked storage tech: Athena
- Story of forgetting thumb drive
- How Drew attracted Arash: posted video of Dropbox
Get out of your comfort zone
- Some of best companies were started by engineers that figured out business
- Buy top Amazon books for each business topic
- Take on more than what you're "ready" for to get used to that feeling
- Learn to start a company by starting a company or joining a startup
Stack the odds in your favor
- Don't push yourself to do things, set it up so you get pulled to up your game
- Started SAT prep company as an excuse to learn how to run a company, even though it was unsuccessful
- Be around people that push you to do better (story about Adam Smith)
- Plug for Y Combinator - good atmosphere if you have no money, not much experience, and no connections
- Find the best investors (story of first meeting with Sequoia Capital)
Make something people want (and pay for)
- Can't be a billion dollar company without a billion dollar market
- Although more competitive, go after the biggest market you can, other things become easier
  - Getting good investors
  - Recruiting people
  - Chance of a reasonable outcome is better
It's just a shitload of hard work
Now we can actually do something huge - Build the internet filesystem

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