The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed

by Ash Ali

hard work can beat talent when talent doesn’t work hard.

Most human endeavours, business included, are achieved in teams.

you will be much better off pooling your strengths and unfair advantages with business partners. This is because it is rare to be good at both developing a product, and selling and communicating that product. Usually you’ll be better at one than the other.

startup founding team, what you need is a creator, a communicator and (often) a technician.

Conflict between startup founders is probably the leading cause of startup death.

There are two ingredients needed to develop your network: 1. An authentic desire to add value to people you meet 2. Increasing your Status so that people perceive more value from you

It’s not all about the breadth of your network, it’s also about the depth.

Bootstrapping comes from the idea of ‘pulling yourself up by your bootstraps’.

simply go and speak to your potential customers, and do anything to get some traction, get a first sale, even if you don’t make a profit from it.

Often your idea simply won’t work. You may have created a solution for a problem that doesn’t really exist, or for a problem the customers don’t perceive as a problem, or for a small problem that the customer is not motivated to solve.

The mistake most of us make is that we envision that our solution is going to be loved. We fall in love with our own idea. This is very dangerous. Beware of falling in love with your idea before you have any feedback from prospective customers/users.

To get your business started, you need to build a minimum viable product.

You have to build something that’s crappy, but that works.

‘If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.’

customers didn’t like the interface of the website very much, but were still using it, it showed that it was genuinely meeting an unmet need for them.

The key difference between angels and VCs is that angel investors expect less traction, and therefore their investment is based even more on their confidence in the co-founders.

luck mindset which reminds us to be grateful for what we have, and to gain a sense of contentment and acceptance with what we have in life, rather than a sense of disempowering victimhood. This mindset allows us to be compassionate, giving, kind and generous with others who may be down on their luck.

reality-growth mindset that keeps you sane and stops you from being too hard on yourself

Most people never get started. Be one of the few who actually do.

Find a problem to solve, speak to potential customers and users, and develop a solution based on their needs. And make sure to charge for it, otherwise it’s a hobby, not a business.