Building Confidence In Yourself and Your Ideas

One trait that many great founders share is conviction. In this episode of Dalton & Michael, we’ll talk about finding confidence in what you're building, the dangers of inaccurate assumptions, and a question founders need to ask themselves before they start trying to sell to anyone else.

00:00 - Coming Up
00:16 - Intro: How Fast Is Too Fast?
00:26 - Rigorous Thinking
02:10 - Superficial Validation
03:26 - Solving Problems
04:09 - High Quality Reps
05:52 - Best Qualities
06:57 - Conviction
08:26 - Fear
12:52 - YC Standard Deal
13:33 - "Pivotitis"
14:01 - Random Walk
16:11 - A Useless MVP
19:40 - Learn A Good Rep

[chapterme]

Chapters (Powered by ChapterMe) -
00:00 - Coming Up
00:16 - Intro: How Fast Is Too Fast?
00:26 - Rigorous Thinking: Very Low Effort
02:10 - Superficial Validation: LinkedIn spam no one wants
02:52 - PM training for user research hinders sales success
03:26 - Coming from big company: You have never solved your problem
04:09 - People Pivot Quickly: Don't Build a Muscle of Building Conviction
05:52 - Founder Personality Traits: Conviction
06:57 - What Conviction Means?
07:40 - Investors Horrible Ideas ≠ Bad Startup Idea
08:26 - YC founders mistakes: Fear and fake information
10:03 - Fear: False Expectations
11:00 - Sales techniques learned in previous jobs
12:52 - New YC Standard Deal
13:33 - "Pivotitis": Bad Case
14:01 - Random Walk: Not getting anywhere
16:11 - A Useless MVP: Launch a product that help no one and then pivot
16:49 - Definition of MVP: Someone should use your MVP
17:36 - YC Application Tips for Developer Tools
18:20 - Earnest point: Using your own tool and making one customer happy
19:40 - Summary
20:56 - Outro

[msolomonbush]

Putting people on pedestals is a confidence killer. Assume every one knows something you dont, and that you know something that no one else does.

[marksfolly]

I think this is prob their best vid. At least of the ones I've seen. It's pretty insightful just how relatable the SV bros are in building their startups vs everyone else. They might have more backing and better advisors, but they really are the same as the rest of us.

[IsaMutlib]

Michael's laugh in x1.5 is worth a listen haha

[Greenmanjim]

Described me 100%. Spinning wheels instead of improving the product. On another note, this is like Weekend Update for YC. Love it.

[donghokang]

That MVP definition part was a GOLD to me. Thanks. Serve 1 person.

[sharath_]

Dalton & Michael Really Shows The Direction To Travel For Aspiring Founders By sharing Their Experience!

[Eltonlin]

I wish they were more explicit on what a good rep is, rather than define what a bad rep is. But I’ll try to be specific so you guys can correct me:
- A MVP that actually delivers an overall positive value (even if only in a small way), sanity check is you use it yourself - goal of MVP is it let’s you talk to a non-zero number of potential customers rather than talk to nobody

- A sales effort that is high quality (heuristic: it’d work on you, the leads are decently qualified but diversified, volume is high (100+ views at minimum, 10000 views not ridiculous for internet/email launched, 1-10 is maybe enough to iterate at least if you already got qualified leads willing to talk to you)

- if pivoting, having concrete invalidation facts (sometimes customer will literally explain why they don’t want it), or actual thesis and articulated theory of why people don’t want it (you observe their actions in unique scenarios due to your launches and conversations)

- judgment not affected by irrelevant experts e.g investors who don’t engage, peers who don’t engage, anyone who doesn’t care about the details of the market

[karenperezchatu]

Sometimes all the information can be overwhelming, it was nice to hear those two brilliant people talking about confidence in yourself. It keeps me going!.

[thatryanp]

This was SPOT ON. Low conviction, to cool for school, can't see the user's reality through my own desire to build a business.
Can I get a witness? ✋

[ghulamurtaza_]

Dalton & Michael Videos make me wonder how useful YC must be. Because literally everyone else will tell you opposite of what they're sating and so if you're not in that environment it's so easy to get off course. Hope we make it to YC for summer24.

[TheRonellCross]

I wish I could've gotten this advice years ago. Thanks for sharing this content. The world needs more of this.

[TheUrbanFight]

I am a simple person. I see a Dalton+Micheal video, I click.

[devangsinghi]

This is the best video that I've seen till now. This is what I needed right now. Thanks for making this!

[hafizietarmizi]

So my key takeaway is to develop mvp that solves your own problem, then you will start solving other people problem of similar niche organically

[ericspecullaas]

I did the "random walk" but not on pivoting. I did that on working with my mvp. I would go from mvp to pitch deck to financial planning to figuring out what my product needs. But since I'm 1 person doing it all it kinda has to be that way. When you work for yourself you have to be able to bounce back and forth all the time I know this from experience working at my dad's business.

[lucasm]

I feel like this conflicts with their previous advice to validate an idea before building

[Marko-qyeg]

In my experience having conviction is a bit of a curse. I wanted to innovate in transportation. I knew when I started it was going to be a 10 year journey. Trouble is that investors don’t want risk locked into long term investment. I can’t give up on my idea because the numbers are too good.
Ever since I’ve done a random walk to get something on the scoreboard.
It’s really hard to do anything that’s not software without $250k in capital. It all comes back to getting over that hurdle.

[codisfy]

Summary
Engaging in thorough thinking and effort. For example, speaking to 25 startups and getting rejected might make you think your idea is bad, or sending 1, 000 emails without a response might lead you to the same conclusion.
If you come from a large company, you might not have solved your own problems but rather those of others.
Ask yourself if you are doing high-quality repetitions. Are you putting in the right effort in the correct amount?
You need to convince yourself that it is a worthwhile problem to solve.
If you have low conviction, you are likely not going to succeed.
People who are "too cool for school" might just pivot until they run out of momentum.
Fear can hold back people who are analytical and good thinkers in their jobs but not in their startups.
"Pivotitis": pivoting without gaining knowledge, essentially doing a "Random Walk."
Some would pivot only after launching a useless MVP that no one wants and doesn't work for even one person.
Avoid having expectations that lead you astray.

[gorangagrawal]

My definition of MVP - Something that fulfils the NEED of a solution for today's problem