Zero to One: Notes on Start Ups, or How to Build the Future

by Blake Masters

But advertising doesn’t exist to make you buy a product right away; it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later.

All salesmen are actors: their priority is persuasion, not sincerity.

If you’ve invented something new but you haven’t invented an effective way to sell it, you have a bad business—no matter how good the product.

The total net profit that you earn on average over the course of your relationship with a customer (Customer Lifetime Value, or CLV) must exceed the amount you spend on average to acquire a new customer (Customer Acquisition Cost, or CAC).

A product is viral if its core functionality encourages users to invite their friends to become users too.

Most businesses get zero distribution channels to work: poor sales rather than bad product is the most common cause of failure. If you can get just one distribution channel to work, you have a great business. If you try for several but don’t nail one, you’re finished.

Selling your company to the media is a necessary part of selling it to everyone else.

seven questions that every business must answer: 1. The Engineering Question Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements? 2. The Timing Question Is now the right time to start your particular business? 3. The Monopoly Question Are you starting with a big share of a small market? 4. The People Question Do you have the right team?

The Distribution Question Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product? 6. The Durability Question Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into the future? 7. The Secret Question Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?

team insight—never invest in a tech CEO that wears a suit—got us to the truth a lot faster.

what will the world look like 10 and 20 years from now, and how will my business fit in?

Jobs’s return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business—the creation of new value—cannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.