Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong's best advice for a pre-product/market fit startup

“If you’re pre-product/market fit, the best advice that I have from that period is: action produces information. Just keep doing stuff… Paul Graham had this great line: startups are like sharks,…

The best people I’ve worked with have “presence”.

When they speak, people listen.
When they show up, people perk up.
When they’re absent, people notice.

They put people at ease. They’re magnetic.

It has nothing to do with seniority or role or extraverted vs. introverted.

But…

“Tom, don't let anybody kid you. It's all personal”

Which book/movie?

The biggest lesson I've learned so far from my book:

The best CEOs are equally strong on telling the story and on execution. We talk A LOT about the latter, and very little about the former except in cases where the execution isn't there. When a leader can do both, it's magic.

A must-read Steve Jobs quote for founders below. In my experience, the only uniformly applicable truth in startup land is that the probability of success increases exponentially with high quality people at the center of the startup. All other advice needs context to be applicable

very glad the startup ecosystem is supporting its most oppressed class: vc associates

Have seen both sides of this across my portfolio many times now: Founders strong at storytelling simply get more opportunities to succeed. The compounding benefits of good storytelling capabilities are real but it also cuts both ways - if you're competing against a founder who…

We're expanding our talent team Audacious Ventures! Come work with the incredible Samantha Price and help our portfolio companies build exceptional engineering teams!

wow!

In business, rules and frameworks are useful but only if you also know when to break those rules.

For AI startups, the competition for sustained user attention and engagement is way, way tougher than the competition for venture dollars right now.

As the famous YC mantra goes: “build something people want”. People being users, not VCs ;)

It's official: $150M for fund two!

Very grateful to Nakul Mandan Muzzammil Zaveri (MZ) Samantha Price for the opportunity to join them on this journey. Fund numbers change but the mission stays the same - be the most impactful investor on the cap table 💪