Synopses & Reviews
Synopsis
Super Founders uses a data-driven approach to understand what really differentiates billion-dollar unicorn startups from the rest. It turns out nearly everything we thought was true about billion dollar startups is false Ali Tamaseb spent thousands of hours over 4 years collecting the largest dataset on billion dollar startups: 30,000 data points on every factor: from the number of competitors they had to their market size; from the founder's age to university ranking and education; from the quality of its investors to the timing of fundraising rounds; and much, much more. And you'll be surprised by what he discovered about billion dollar startups. Just to mention a few:
- Most founders had no industry experience;
- There's no disadvantage to being a solo founder or to being a non-technical CEO;
- Less than 15% went through any accelerator or incubator program;
- Over half had strong competitors when starting--being first to market with an idea does not matter.
You will also hear the stories of the early days of billion dollar startups first-hand. The book includes exclusive interviews with the founders/investors of Zoom, Instacart, PayPal, Nest, Github, Flatiron Health, Kite Pharma, Facebook, Stripe, Airbnb, YouTube, LinkedIn, Lyft, DoorDash, Coinbase, and Square, venture capital investors from firms like Sequoia Capital and Founders Fund, as well as previously untold stories about the early days of ByteDance (TikTok), WhatsApp, Dropbox, Discord, DiDi, Flipkart, Instagram, Careem, Peloton, and SpaceX.
Filled with surprising, counterintuitive insights,
Super Founders gives readers an unprecedented look at the world's most successful startups. It's a paradigm-shifting and actionable guide for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone interested in startups.
Synopsis
Super Founders uses a data-driven approach to understand what really differentiates billion-dollar startups from the rest--revealing that nearly everything we thought was true about them is false Ali Tamaseb has spent thousands of hours amassing what may be the largest dataset ever collected on startups, comparing billion-dollar startups with those that failed to become one--30,000 data points on nearly every factor: number of competitors, market size, the founder's age, his or her university's ranking, quality of investors, fundraising time, and many, many more. And what he found looked far different than expected. Just to mention a few:
- Most unicorn founders had no industry experience;
- There's no disadvantage to being a solo founder or to being a non-technical CEO;
- Less than 15% went through any kind of accelerator program;
- Over half had strong competitors when starting--being first to market with an idea does not actually matter.
You will also hear the stories of the early days of billion dollar startups first-hand. The book includes exclusive interviews with the founders/investors of Zoom, Instacart, PayPal, Nest, Github, Flatiron Health, Kite Pharma, Facebook, Stripe, Airbnb, YouTube, LinkedIn, Lyft, DoorDash, Coinbase, and Square, venture capital investors like Elad Gil, Peter Thiel, Alfred Lin from Sequoia Capital and Keith Rabois of Founders Fund, as well as previously untold stories about the early days of ByteDance (TikTok), WhatsApp, Dropbox, Discord, DiDi, Flipkart, Instagram, Careem, Peloton, and SpaceX.
Packed with counterintuitive insights and inside stories from people who have built massively successful companies, Super Founders is a paradigm-shifting and actionable guide for entrepreneurs, investors, and anyone interested in what makes a startup successful.