How Top Startups Break the Rules

Two co-founders in an office in SF — that’s our image of a successful startup. But many of my best investments don’t look like that…

The best companies often break a rule. Let’s look at some of those rules and how successful companies break them.

You Need a Cofounder

We tell everyone they have to have a co-founder. But my most successful investment so far was in a solo founder, Ali at Micro1.

Look at Amazon, Facebook or Oracle. All solo founders.

Maybe having one person making decisions forces a company to move faster.

There are benefits to having co-founders. They bring skills you lack and share the workload.

But never rule out a great solo founder.

You Have to Be In Person

Everyone is rushing back into offices. But my most successful investment has a lot of its team remote. Coinbase, Airbnb and Wiz are remote too.

Remote work lets you hire the best talent no matter where they live. That’s a huge advantage.

In-office work has benefits too. It can be easier to cooperate in person.

But you’re giving up a global talent pool.

You Have to be in SF

One of my best investments, Rilla, is in New York. And they’re not even in Manhattan — they’re in Long Island City!

Those guys work as hard as anyone in San Francisco. And they’re growing really fast.

A great founder will succeed in any town in America.

Wrap-Up

There’s nothing wrong with having a co-founder, an office, and living in SF. I have some awesome investments that check all those boxes.

But great companies tend to break the rules. My job is to find those outliers.

What rules are you breaking, and why?