The Entrepreneur’s Cheat Sheet
The entire knowledge base distilled into one page. Pin this to your wall.
The 6 Phases
| Phase | Goal | Key Framework | Biggest Risk |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Ideation | Find a problem worth solving | Well test: “Who wants this so badly they’ll use it from unknown founders?” | Building something nobody wants |
| 2. Validation | Prove real people will pay | Mom Test: ask about their life, not your idea | Confirmation bias |
| 3. PMF | Achieve product-market fit | Sean Ellis: ≥40% “very disappointed” | Premature scaling |
| 4. Early Growth | Grow with unscalable tactics | Collison installation: “give me your laptop” | Hiring before selling yourself |
| 5. Scaling | Build the growth machine | Leslie’s Compass: is it bought or sold? | Losing culture during rapid hiring |
| 6. Endurance | Survive long enough to win | Default alive or dead? | Founder burnout |
The 10 Commandments
- Make something people want. Everything else is secondary.
- Talk to users. There are no facts inside the building.
- Do things that don’t scale. Manual first, automate later.
- Charge early. Paying users = validation. Free users = vanity.
- Focus. One metric. One channel. One thing at a time.
- Move fast. Speed of learning is your competitive advantage.
- Hire slow. Don’t compromise on quality. Ever.
- Watch your cash. Know if you’re default alive or dead.
- Pivot when the data says so. Obstinacy kills. 70% of successes pivot.
- Take care of yourself. Startups take longer than you think.
Key Numbers to Know
| Metric | Target | Source |
|---|---|---|
| PMF score | ≥40% “very disappointed” | Sean Ellis |
| LTV:CAC ratio | >3:1 | Industry standard |
| CAC payback | <3 months (low-LTV) | Sam Altman |
| Weekly growth | 10% (= 14K users/year) | Paul Graham |
| CEO recruiting time | 25% post-PMF | Sam Altman |
| Startup failure rate | 90%+ | Multiple sources |
| Pivot rate (of successes) | ~70% | Industry data |
| Founder mental health issues | 87.7% | 2024 survey |
The Frameworks Wall
Finding Ideas
- Well test: Deep demand from a small group > mild interest from many
- Schlep Blindness: The tedium others avoid IS your competitive moat
- Organic > Manufactured: Notice problems, don’t brainstorm solutions
- Thiel’s question: “What important truth do few people agree with you on?”
Validating
- Mom Test: Their life, not your idea. Past specifics, not future hypotheticals.
- Build-Measure-Learn: The unit of progress is validated learning, not features shipped
- MVP ≠ bad product: It’s the minimum experiment for maximum learning
Competing
- Thiel: Competition is for losers. Build a monopoly (10x tech, network effects, scale, brand)
- Altman: Competitors are a startup ghost story. 99% of failures are suicide, not murder.
- Distribution power law: Nail ONE channel. If you try several but nail none, you’re dead.
Money
- Default alive/dead: Expenses + growth rate + cash = will you make it?
- Ramen profitability: First milestone. Proves model, grants independence.
- 10-5-20 pricing rule: Start at 10x cost, raise 5% per cohort, until losing 20% on price
- Fundraising: Parallel (not sequential), clean terms, the first check is hardest
Leading
- Wartime CEO: Existential threat → protocol-breaking, detail-obsessed, single-bullet precision
- Peacetime CEO: Growing market → broad creativity, consensus, culture-building
- Founder mode: Stay engaged on what matters. Skip levels. Don’t become a manager.
- Editing, not writing: Your job is simplifying. Barrels (ship end-to-end) > ammunition (ICs).
Team
- Cofounders: Know them well. Equal equity. 4-year vest, 1-year cliff.
- First 10 hires: Set the cultural DNA. Good and bad are both infectious.
- Culture: Defined by who you hire, fire, and promote. Not perks.
- Barrels vs ammunition: The constraint is always barrels. Find and invest in them.
How Startups Die
| Cause | % | Prevention |
|---|---|---|
| Weak business model | 26% | Validate model before scaling |
| Cash problems | 37% | Watch burn rate. Stay default alive. |
| No market traction | 18% | Talk to users. Iterate relentlessly. |
| No market demand | 12% | Apply the Well test. Don’t build for ghosts. |
| Cofounder fights | ~20% leave | Choose well. Vest. Hard conversations early. |
The One-Liner Test
If you can’t say it in one sentence, the thinking is muddled:
- Airbnb: “Book rooms with locals, rather than hotels”
- Stripe: “Payments infrastructure for the internet”
- Dropbox: “Your files, anywhere”
What WeWork Got Wrong (Anti-Pattern Checklist)
If you’re doing any of these, stop:
- Losing money on every unit and planning to “make it up in volume”
- Calling yourself a “tech company” when you’re not (to justify valuation)
- Inventing metrics that exclude your largest costs
- Blitzscaling without network effects or winner-take-all dynamics
- Raising so much money that you never face market reality
- Letting a charismatic founder operate without governance checks
- Confusing vision with delusion, or determination with obstinacy
See: case-study-wework
See Also
- start-here — Full reading guide with 5 learning paths
- the-startup-lifecycle — Detailed 6-phase journey
- where-the-experts-disagree — When the frameworks contradict each other
- case-study-airbnb — Every framework applied to one company
- case-study-stripe — Schlep Blindness in action
- case-study-slack — The greatest pivot in SaaS
- case-study-wework — Every anti-pattern in one company