Billion dollar startup ideas

What makes you new, different, and unique in the world will often be the exact thing that makes you succeed. Embrace your differences, and you’ll find something amazing in there. Learn how founders like Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Ryan Petersen of Flexport, and Jack Conte of Patreon did exactly that: learn things from unique personal experiences that put them on the right path.

And if you can do that, you avoid infinite competition. You can make something truly awesome.

00:00 Intro
01:52 Steve Jobs on Unique Experiences
03:04 How Ryan Petersen's experiences led him to make Flexport
04:26 How Jack Conte's experiences led him to make Patreon
05:24 You don't have to be novel
06:01 Great startups start as toys
06:43 Paul Graham on startup ideas

I’m Garry Tan, venture capitalist and founder at Initialized Capital. We were earliest investors in billion dollar startups like Coinbase and Instacart, and I’m a Forbes Midas List Top 100 venture capitalist in the world. We want these videos to be about helping people build world-class teams and startups that touch a billion people. Our startups have gone on to create more than $40 billion in market value so far, and Initialized has over $770M in assets under management. I’m doing my own one man YouTube channel with no staff or crew — we're going for raw and unfiltered, not perfect.

Please like this video and subscribe to my channel if you want to see more videos like this!

[the-product-wiz]

I'm just here for my first pin.:)

[matthewmolinar]

This never fails: "Keep working on your creator skills, on your builder skills. Being a great engineer, being a great product manager, becoming a better leader, becoming more consistent, more conscientious, and a better communicator."

This is a true north star, thank you!

[mahmoudtokura]

Every few moons, youtube throws a gem like this on my recommended list.
I am definitely subscribing to this channel.

[seans]

I just clicked on the video, and I got inspired so much and scribed, after 31 years of working in five different big companies and loved what I achieved. Now I am 48 years and got out the corporations, made them a lot of Millions of dollars. and I learned very few things for them. So now I am thinking and planning to be my employer. So I plan to start my business at the beginning of 2022.
I will be traveling around the world for the next 12 months, starting December 01, 2020, to find ideas and learning more about what I need to do. Thanks for this video and for sharing your love with all of us. 🙏🏻🙏🏻👌

[coolthought]

6:58 - "work on hard problems, driven mainly by curiosity....taking note of gaps and anomalies" This is both a great insight and encouragement to my otherwise very little progress work on a project. I am trying to unwind something that has become a commodity and provide the values the. creators duly deserved. Thank you.

[ibrand]

“History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes”... love this, it reminds me of jobs-to-be-done theory. The other “trick” that has helped me a lot is be cognizant of “shlep blindness”, another great frame from PG.

[himanshuskushwah]

Coming up with ideas is good but coming up with problem solving ideas which are better faster & cheaper is the goal.

[stevexie]

Saved! Will come back and watch this when I face too many rejections and brick wall hits while trying to advance

[СергейМонин-дс]

"Work on hard problems" - Agree. Everyone wants an easy solution. No one wants to bother with math or science. When you work on hard problems, you'll get 10x less competition. Simply because people are lazy and math is scary for most people. Come up with an uncommon idea and you'll succeed. Something that is not travel or cryptocurrency related, for example, logistics or data analytics. Instant win.

[EniOluwa]

While I believe there is definitely an X factor involved in building a billion-dollar startup; I think having a vision and a passion to bring the vision to reality is the foundation. Vision allows you to see the whole picture. Passion keeps you going in spite of challenges. Yet another masterclass from Garry. Thanks.

[philippkaming]

„History doesn’t repeat, but it rhymes“ - is literally my fav quote from now on! Just think about it for a Second: Every company runs on the same very basic of principles of solving a real problem, finding the right words for what you are trying to say, creating value and so on. Yet, from the outside, it sometimes looks like as if they would have no common ground at all - but the metrics of success were the same in every case.

Also thanks for the great content, keep it up Garry! To be honest I have a million startup ideas just in my head, getting new ones all the time - usually about AI, future of human transport/ Infrastructure and educational system, sometimes crazy space stuff. Mostly they feel to big to achieve. If you would take a few mins, I’d pitch you my top three! If not, one day or another we’ll meet at Silicon Valley 🤘

Greets from Berlin!

[nicetrymate]

Garry Tan is amazing. Genuinely nice, giving value out of interest and love for his work as opposed to status. His advice is second to none.

[sauravsilawat]

An eye opener thank you garry for creating this, can't believe such type of information is free to access.

[KenJee_ds]

Not my area of expertise, but I feel like there isn't a shortage of good (and novel) ideas. However, there is a shortage of people who have the knowledge and/or capital to prototype a product and get something into peoples hands. I also think that it is less about the idea and the willingness of the founder to pivot to what the market demands not what they personally find valuable. Would love your thoughts on these two aspects Garry! Love the channel and this video. Comment is not meant to sound dissenting, hoping to just start a dialogue!

[HezOmanjo]

This is the kind of gem you stumble upon that makes you awed about the YouTube recommendation algorithm. Amazing content Gary.

[nourassili]

Love this channel! Can't believe i haven't watched these before

[mattporter]

Love your point on experiences. I find it easy to regret all the time I've "wasted" not having started something yet. But who knows where I would be without my past experience. I think all that time has lead me to come up with some great ideas and made me who I am today. No regrets!

[sabelahmad]

I think billion dollars startup idea is weird, crazy and seems impossible to executive!
But passionate people never give up, they make it possible.

[michaelbrownnn]

Thanks for the good advice and the share of Paul Graham's article on generating startup ideas. Really helpful!

Most people advise others toward specialization and a narrowing of experience. It's refreshing to hear arguments supporting going wide on unique experiences as they will serve you (and others) later in life. I was fortunate to have people in my life encouraging me to choose adventure and experience over specialization in my 20's and early 30's. Many of my friends took the other path and out-earned me in terms of dollars but I was out-earning them in experiences, which have opened up a world of possibilities to me now. No regrets on that.

One of my favorite quotes from the Paul Graham article, "Live in the future, then build what's missing."

Cheers

[eastern_eden]

Hey Garry, I rarely ever comment on YouTube videos but your channel has inspired me a lot over this past week and I wanted to let you know. I appreciate your passion and genuineness, it really shines through! So glad I stumbled across your channel and I’m excited to see what you release in the future.