Sequoia Capital has a long-term orientation and fee structure, and works to generate higher returns for their limited partners by waiting to distribute when the company’s share price catches up with its performance.
Problem solving
- Set clear goals and remind yourself of them regularly to stay focused and motivated to achieve your objectives.
- Specialized degrees can help you in unexpected ways later in life, even when working in fields unrelated to the degree.
- To be successful, founders must have an authentic connection to the problem they are solving and a compelling value proposition to set them apart from the competition.
- Listen, be precise with questions, distill information, and practice pre-mortems and pre-parades to ensure focus on the right things for success.
Don’t be too cautious
- Make mistakes, but keep moving forward and don’t be too cautious, as it can limit future successes.
- Remain open-minded and learn to revisit assumptions to make wise decisions, even if we make the wrong ones. Successes will far outweigh the failures.
- Mentors are instrumental in helping overcome failure, as they provide encouragement and remind you not to give up on yourself. Create a culture where change of mind is praised.
Success needs diverse skills
- When taking risks, focus on the learning process rather than the outcome, and recognize the team effort and multiple perspectives required for success.
- Success in the modern business world requires a well-rounded team with diverse skills and the ability to balance individualism and teamwork.
- Take risks and explore possibilities, even if the outcome is uncertain. Make the most of the opportunities that come your way, and have fun doing it.
Stay hungry and focused
- Remain small and focused, stay hungry and determined, and keep up with changing technologies and trends to recognize potential success stories.
- Finding the motivation to pursue a goal and balancing it with contentment is a major key to happiness.
- Success is an ongoing process that should be nurtured over the long-term. Reaching peak performance is not the end, but a new beginning.
Embracing risk and learning from post-mortems
- Taking risks is an important part of any educational experience, but it can be daunting.
- To ease the fear of failure, it is important to focus on the learning process rather than the outcome.
- Post-mortems can be helpful in understanding where we went wrong, but overemphasizing them can breed a sense of fear.
- It is important to take the time to revisit and revise our assumptions and decisions, even if it takes effort and goes against our heuristics.
Take risks and follow your heart
- It is important to have ambition and think long-term when pursuing business goals, as a small number of investments can make a big difference.
- Secondary transactions can be a useful tool for founders and investors to manage ambition, but having a conversation about money, ownership, and advice from experienced advisors is key to making the right decision.
- Consider decisions carefully for growth and success; exercise regularly; and make the most of opportunities.
- It is sometimes worth taking risks and following your heart, as it can lead to great success.
