Lessons from a two-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor, and 20-time company board member | Uri Levine (co-founder of Waze)

1. Fall in Love with the Problem

Focus on solving a significant problem, as it’s the simplest way to create value and serves as a North Star for your entrepreneurial journey, increasing your likelihood of success.

2. 30-Day Hiring Review

Every time you hire someone new, mark your calendar for 30 days out and ask yourself: ‘Knowing what I know today, would I hire this person?’ If the answer is no, fire them immediately to prevent damage to the team and the individual’s trajectory.

3. Continuously Re-evaluate Life Decisions

Regularly ask yourself, ‘Knowing what I know today, would I do something different?’ If the answer is yes, make that change today, as ’today is the first day of the rest of your life.’

4. Optimize First Presentation Slide

Place your strongest point (e.g., market size, traction, team) on the first slide of your presentation, as this slide will be displayed for the longest period and is crucial for making a strong first impression on investors.

5. Optimize Last Presentation Slide

Use your last slide (e.g., ‘Thank You’) to repeat your strongest point or a key message, as it is often the second-longest displayed slide during Q&A and provides a final opportunity to reinforce your message.

6. Prioritize Product-Market Fit

Focus relentlessly on achieving product-market fit, which means creating undeniable value for your customers; failure to do so will lead to the company’s demise, while success allows you to ’live and die another day.’

7. Measure PMF with Retention

The single most important metric for product-market fit is retention; if customers return, you are creating value, and if they are not coming back, you are not.

8. Fail Fast to Maximize Attempts

Embrace the journey of failures by trying new things and aiming to fail fast; this approach leaves you with more time to make additional attempts, iterate, and increase your likelihood of success.

9. Prioritize ‘Good Enough’ Over Perfection

Don’t strive for perfection, as ’the biggest enemy of good enough is perfect’; instead, start with a ’not good enough’ solution and iterate repeatedly until it becomes ‘good enough’ to win the market.

10. Be Passionate About the Problem

You must be personally passionate and ‘fall in love’ with the problem you’re solving, as the entrepreneurial journey is long, hard, and requires strong internal drive to overcome challenges.

11. Frame Story by Problem/Value

When telling your company’s story, start with the problem you are solving or the value you create for the user, rather than focusing on your solution; this approach is more compelling and resonates better with listeners.

12. Validate Problems with Strangers

To validate if a problem is real and significant, speak with 20-100 people you don’t know; if they correct your understanding of the problem or describe it themselves, it’s a strong signal that you’re on the right track.

13. Source Ideas from Personal Frustration

Find startup ideas by identifying personal frustrations or things that bother you, then explore if these are problems shared by many others.

14. Embrace Failure to Innovate

Don’t be afraid to fail, as trying new things inevitably leads to failure; viewing it as a journey of failures increases the likelihood of success, as exemplified by Albert Einstein and Michael Jordan.

15. Value Creation Precedes Business Model

Focus on creating value first, as a viable business model will naturally emerge if you successfully deliver value to customers who are most likely willing to pay for it.

16. Drive Word-of-Mouth with High Frequency

Word-of-mouth growth is most effectively achieved with products that have a high frequency of use, as it provides more opportunities for users to share their positive experiences.

17. Figure Out Business Model for Low Frequency Products

If your product has a low frequency of use, prioritize figuring out your business model and customer acquisition strategy early, as you will constantly need to acquire new users.

18. Focus on Product in PMF Phase

During the product-market fit phase, concentrate resources on product development, developers, and a product lead, rather than sales, business development, or marketing, as there’s no stable product to sell yet.

19. Define Focus by What You Don’t Do

True focus in a startup is defined by the hard decisions of what you choose not to do, ensuring resources are concentrated on the most critical current phase.

20. CEO Pitches Alone for Early Funding

For early-stage fundraising, the CEO should attend meetings alone to keep the spotlight on themselves, as investors primarily invest in the CEO and their story at this stage.

21. Tell Emotionally Engaging Stories

When pitching, focus on telling a good story that creates emotional engagement and makes the listener want to be part of it, rather than just presenting facts.

22. Investors Seek Usability & Buildability

Investors want to believe your product is usable (relevant to them as potential users) and that you have the capability to build it.

23. Start Pitches with the Problem

Always begin your pitch by describing the problem, as investors are also users and need to connect with the problem emotionally to see the product’s relevance.

24. Expect 1% Investor Conversion

Understand that investor conversion rates are typically around 1%, meaning you should expect to hear 100 ’no’s’ for every ‘yes,’ and don’t be discouraged by rejections.

25. Use ‘Keeper Test’ for Underperformers

To confirm a firing decision, ask top-performing team members how they would feel if a specific underperforming person left; if they say ‘it’s not a big deal,’ it’s a confirmation to let that person go.

26. Set 90-Day Review for Job Satisfaction

If you’re unhappy at work, identify the reasons and potential changes; if after 90 days the situation hasn’t improved, consider quitting to find a place where you can be successful.

27. Ask Direct Reference Question

When checking references, ask the direct question: ‘Would you hire this person again?’ to get a clear yes or no answer that provides honest insight.

28. Recognize Diverse User Behaviors

Understand that users will use your product in unexpected ways, and your own usage patterns don’t represent everyone; failing to recognize this leads to building the wrong product.

29. Observe & Question New Users

To truly understand user behavior, watch new users interact with your product and, if they don’t use it as expected, ask them ‘why’ to uncover critical insights for improvement.

30. Address Early Majority’s Fear of Change

When targeting the early majority, recognize their fear of change and ‘don’t rock the boat’ mindset; focus on demonstrating how your product is better than their current ‘good enough’ solution.

31. Strive for Simplicity

To overcome user barriers and achieve broad adoption, especially for the early majority, prioritize simplicity in your product design, as ‘simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.’

32. Remove Unused Features

Continuously remove features that users are not actively using, as they add unnecessary complexity and detract from the product’s core value.

33. Interview Failed/Churned Users

To improve your product, prioritize speaking with users who failed to convert or churned at various stages of the funnel, as their ‘why’ reveals critical insights for product development.

34. Teach Children to Embrace Failure

Teach your children to fail, because when they get up, they get up stronger; this empowers them to get out of their comfort zone and discover what makes them happy.

35. Align Team with Problem

Engage everyone in your team to fall in love with the same problem, inspiring them to join the journey and follow your leadership towards a common goal.

36. Reward Top Performers Early

If, after 30 days, you would rehire someone, tell them they’re exceeding expectations and give them more equity to buy their loyalty for life.

37. Target High Retention for Frequent Use Products

For products with high frequency of use, aim for 3-month retention rates of 30-50% as a good indication of product-market fit.