Top 3 Startup Tips from Peter Thiel
How To Build A Unicorn Company
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1. Aim For Monopoly
Build a one-of-a-kind company that is so differentiated from its competition that it’s not even competing. Don’t try to outcompete your opponents. Don’t try to make products that are really similar but you pretend have something unique about them. Don’t even try to “disrupt”. Chances are, if your company can be summed up by its opposition to already existing firms, it can’t be completely new and it’s probably not going to become a monopoly.
I know you’re wondering, “I thought that competition was a good thing!”. In capitalist societies that we live in now, we’re often hardwired to think that. But Peter challenges this notion. He admits that when you compete ferociously, you will get better at that which you are competing on. However, this comes at the cost of losing sight of what often is more important and valuable.
🔑: Radically differentiate your company and escape from competition.
2. Start with a small market
At first, this seems counterintuitive. As a company, you always want to have the largest market share possible. By limiting yourself to a smaller market, aren’t you just limiting the amount of money you can make? No!
It is always better to start off with a smaller market than it is to with a bigger one. By starting small, you can dominate a niche market without that many competitors, potentially even creating a monopoly in that market. Sound familiar?
🔑: Dominate a niche market first, world domination comes later.
3. Think contrarian, think for yourself
“Which problems exist in the world that no one is working on right now?”
“What do you believe, that is true, that no one else believes to be true?”
These are the types of questions you should be considering when starting a company. Imitation is very much embedded in human culture, but the challenge is overcoming this reflexive reaction to imitate and to think for yourself. If you want to circumvent the competition and build a true monopoly, you will need to be able to identify the unconventional path no one else is willing to take.
🔑: To build a unicorn, you must be truly different from your competitors.
To do that, you must be able to think totally different from them.
PS: If you didn’t know who Peter Thiel was, he founded PayPal, Palantir Technologies and Founders Fund. Ranked number 4 on the Forbes Midas List of 2014 — with a net worth of $2.2 billion — he is a VC who was one of the early investors in Facebook and LinkedIn. To this day, he continues to be an influential investor and thought leader. I highly suggest you check him out if you haven’t already.
Now get out there and create some unicorns!
