Starting Greatness
80 episodes - English - Latest episode: 10 months ago - ★★★★★ - 367 ratingsHost Mike Maples Jr from venture capital firm FLOODGATE offers lessons from the startup super performers—BEFORE they were successful—featuring interviews with some of Silicon Valley’s most legendary entrepreneurs and thought leaders, including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, Nextdoor co-founder Sarah Leary, Instagram founders Kevin Systrom and Mike Kreiger, and more.
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Episodes
Lessons of Greatness: Nail Your Niche
June 12, 2023 08:05 - 9 minutes - 8.5 MBFounders are naturally drawn to the tantalizing potential of their product reaching a vast market, but the route to victory starts with nailing a niche before going for the broader opportunity. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE calls on the lessons of Spotify co-founder Daniel Ek to examine how this is done: Identify a stronghold where you can dominate, deliver a Delta 4 experience, and do everything possible to create unfair advantages in your favor.
Daniel Ek: How Spotify Revolutionized The Music Business
June 12, 2023 08:00 - 47 minutes - 43.6 MBWhen he was a little boy growing up in Sweden, Daniel Ek was obsessed with two things: the binary realm of computers and the artistry of music. As a young adult, he combined his love for both by co-founding Spotify, which became the global standard-bearer for streaming, Spotify now has more than 500 million users per month. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Daniel Ek to break down the importance of recognizing technology infections, securing the perfect niche to secure ...
Lessons of Greatness: Crisis Reveals Greatness
March 27, 2023 06:40 - 9 minutes - 8.48 MBStartup founders dealt with uncertainty, stress and trauma in the wake of the run on Silicon Valley Bank, but the most important lessons from this crisis never showed up in social media. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE calls on the actions of a variety of founders who showed incredible courage and competence to showcase three crucial lessons for founders for how to deal with another potential crisis: Scenario planning, financial agility, and crisis communication.
Untold lessons from the SVB bank run
March 27, 2023 06:25 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBThe recent run on Silicon Valley Bank led to a variety of accusations, recriminations and finger-pointing on social media, but how can FOUNDERS actually learn from the crisis? And what lessons can we learn from the founders who crushed it under tough circumstances? In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr welcomes FLOODGATE co-founder Ann Miura-Ko on the show to discuss these topics. Mike and Ann also speak with SmarterDx CEO Michael Gao about how he handled a wild weekend for his company, and legend...
Lessons of Greatness: Refuse Mediocrity
December 15, 2022 08:05 - 11 minutes - 10.8 MBWhen we REFUSE to accept mediocrity, we can start building greatness. But how can you avoid the pitfalls of learned helplessness and help your company break through the arbitrary limits that impede progress? In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE calls on the lessons of Boom Supersonic founder Blake Scholl to examine three tips to help founders develop startups that change the future: Embrace the belief you can make radical change, find a big problem that speaks to your sou...
Blake Scholl: How Boom Supersonic Took Flight
December 15, 2022 08:00 - 40 minutes - 37.5 MBMore than fifty years after the first Concorde took flight, consumer air travel is actually SLOWER. Blake Scholl and his team at Boom Supersonic are out to reverse this stagnation and change how we think about commercial aviation. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Scholl to learn more about the history of American aviation, the origins of Boom Supersonic and the challenges it faces now, and how tech founders are exploring unfamiliar spaces with great success.
Lessons of Greatness: Leslie’s Compass
August 22, 2022 08:00 - 11 minutes - 10.9 MBWhen a startup product goes to market, the two key muscles it can flex are marketing and sales. In nearly every facet of a startup product, marketing or sales takes the natural lead in getting the product to customers. But startups often pour resources into these two areas in unfocused ways, and the results can be disastrous. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE discusses the work of Silicon Valley legend Mark Leslie and specifically the framework of Leslie’s Compass, a...
Mark Leslie: Silicon Valley Go-to-Market Legend (Part 2)
August 22, 2022 08:00 - 36 minutes - 33.8 MBMike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE welcomes back go-to-market expert and Stanford Graduate School of Business lecturer Mark Leslie for the second of their two-part interview, this time focusing on the role and responsibilities of a CEO and a deep dive into Leslie’s Compass, an essential set of heuristics for every startup founder. Leslie also discusses the value of founders focusing on a five-year plan for their startup, why it’s challenging to make meaningful change inside a large company, and why...
Lessons of Greatness: The Sales Learning Curve
August 01, 2022 08:05 - 11 minutes - 10.8 MBWhen a startup launches a new product, it's tempting to ramp its sales force too quickly. Often, this leads to a crash-and-burn scenario for companies that failed to learn what it took for the *entire organization* to achieve product-market-fit. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE discusses how Mark Leslie's Sales Learning Curve framework helps startups keep themselves honest about their progress toward product-market fit, rather than falling into the trap of wishful thi...
Mark Leslie: Silicon Valley Go-to-Market Legend (Part 1)
August 01, 2022 08:00 - 45 minutes - 42 MBDuring the 1990s, Mark co-founded Veritas Systems, which he piloted from nothing to 6,000 employees and $1.5B in revenue in a decade. Now a lecturer in management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business, Leslie is one of the foremost experts in go-to-market strategy in Silicon Valley, and in the first of this two-part series with Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE, Leslie discusses what strategies he used to make Veritas a runaway success, and the origins for the Sales Learning Curve.
Lessons of Greatness: The Infinite Game
May 16, 2022 07:05 - 6 minutes - 6.04 MBWe’re taught from a young age about *finite* sporting games like baseball, basketball, and soccer. Or board games like checkers or chess. Or academic games like grades and test scores. Or status games like credentials and university degrees. In these games, we know the rules and how to determine who scored the highest, according to rules set by someone else. But what about *infinite* games, where the rules and players are changeable, and the primary goal is to keep the game going? In this les...
Tobi Lutke: A Startup Founder Arming The Rebels Against Amazon
May 16, 2022 07:00 - 40 minutes - 36.8 MBGrowing up in Germany, Shopify co-founder and CEO Tobi Lutke was never quite comfortable with people telling him to do things because that's the way they're done. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Lutke to discuss the origins of Shopify, the difference between finite games and infinite games, and the reason it's important for startups and companies to always question assumptions imposed by "experts."
Lessons of Greatness: The Artistry of Startup Breakthroughs
February 28, 2022 08:05 - 8 minutes - 7.49 MBToo many people mistakenly believe that being a good entrepreneur comes from simply talking to customers and solving their pain. But the most impactful companies are built for aesthetic reasons - think of Twitter, Lyft, Apple, and Medium - and those companies serve as expressions of what their founders thought the world needed. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE discusses the success of Pandora’s visionary founder Tim Westergren, and offers three tips for founders looki...
Tim Westergren: How The Band Kept Playing At Pandora
February 28, 2022 08:05 - 41 minutes - 38.3 MBTim Westergren maxed out 11 credit cards, racked up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt, and was rejected 348 times for a second round of funding for his revolutionary idea for a music streaming platform. But like any true artist, Westergren remained committed to his vision of creating an aesthetically more beautiful future with Pandora, and now the company boasts more than 6 million monthly subscribers. Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Westergren to discuss the company’s humble b...
Lessons of Greatness: “BIG D" Design
December 20, 2021 14:50 - 7 minutes - 7.26 MBLots of people think about design from the perspective of how a product should look and function. But design can be applied to greatness on many more levels than most realize. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE discusses how you can design your opportunity, your team, your market, your category, your culture, and even your own life. "Big D" design is about understanding that you have the chance to be more intentional in more areas that contribute to success than most re...
Qasar Younis and Peter Ludwig of Applied Intuition: A Startup Designed to Win
December 20, 2021 14:50 - 37 minutes - 34.1 MBQasar Younis and Peter Ludwig both grew up in the backyard of American automotive giant General Motors in Detroit, but didn’t cross paths until their days as product managers at Google. Since then they’ve pooled their affinity for cars and technology as the co-founders of Applied Intuition, a fast-moving startup that has already achieved greatness with their advanced simulation software for autonomous vehicles. Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Younis and Ludwig to discuss how the comp...
Lessons of Greatness: How to Defeat "We're F*cked, It's Over" (WFIO) Moments
November 15, 2021 08:05 - 12 minutes - 11.5 MBYour startup will face multiple WFIO moments on the path to greatness...COUNT ON IT. But that doesn’t mean you should let these moments get inside your head. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE discusses how every startup team MUST be prepared to take the initiative in the crucible of the WFIO moments they will inevitably face. The bright side? You can use these horrible situations as defining moments to show everyone that your startup is destined to defeat the impossible.
Ben Horowitz: “The IPO From Hell” and Other REAL Lessons from the Startup Crucible
November 15, 2021 08:00 - 44 minutes - 40.5 MBStartups are romanticized AFTER they win. But it takes extraordinary grit to have what it TAKES to win. Ben Horowitz, the co-founder of Andreessen-Horowitz, is the perfect guest to tell it like it is, as he has for many years in his books "the Hard Thing About Hard Things" and "What You Do Is Who You Are." Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE interviews Ben to discuss the ups and downs of dealing with "the struggle," and why the best startup leaders are often the ones who simply refused to quit.
Lessons of Greatness: The future is DESIGNED, not predicted
November 01, 2021 09:05 - 13 minutes - 12 MBModerna CEO Stephane Bancel understands that the task of a revolutionary startup is to manifest a radically different future, and not merely settle for a marginal improvement. But how did he make that future a reality with messenger RNA Therapeutics, and how can you do it with your startup? In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE goes in-depth on the three strategies to designing a future where your startup achieves greatness: Play offense with risk, use the Backcasting meth...
Stephane Bancel of Moderna: $5B and 10 years on the path to changing humanity
November 01, 2021 09:00 - 45 minutes - 41.4 MBWhat’s it like to run a startup that has achieved its goal of impacting humanity at a time of desperate need? Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel joins Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE to discuss the power of taking offensive risks to seize unlikely futures with massive upside, sometimes with the result of changing the odds of life itself. For founders seeking greatness, the conversation also teases out many of the enduring lessons of how we can increase the odds of creating massive breakthroughs.
Lessons of Greatness: Apply Game Design to Business Software
September 21, 2021 16:14 - 10 minutes - 9.53 MBRahul Vohra shows us how game design can be used to make business products far more engaging and contribute to a state of flow. Since future success in business software and services is increasingly driven by product-led growth and bottoms-up adoption driven by end-users, mastering game design is vital for startups seeking greatness. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples, Jr talks about the specific and actionable steps you can take to harness the power of game design in your products.
Rahul Vohra of Superhuman: How to create business products people *enjoy* using
September 21, 2021 15:54 - 37 minutes - 33.9 MBRahul Vohra of Superhuman has adopted some of the most cutting-edge approaches to making a business product people *want* to use, rather than have to use. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of FLOODGATE talks to Rahul about how any startup founder can apply the principles of game design to their products, and why this is becoming increasingly important in a world where users (rather than IT) increasingly decide which products win.
Lessons of Greatness: The Myth of TAM
August 23, 2021 17:06 - 10 minutes - 9.39 MBThe conventional thinking is that a big total available market (TAM) is one of the most important factors in startup success. But Julia Hartz's success at Eventbrite shows the limits of this thinking. In this Lesson of Greatness, Mike Maples Jr of Floodgate talks about the difference between available markets and potential markets and offers heuristics for determining the potential market for future breakthroughs.
Julia Hartz: From Zero to One to IPO and Beyond
August 23, 2021 17:04 - 43 minutes - 39.8 MBEventbrite CEO Julia Hartz didn't start out life thinking she would be a tech founder, but she has achieved a feat that's very rare: Starting a great startup and going the distance, even past IPO. She also navigated one of the toughest setbacks in recent tech history when the COVID-19 pandemic jeopardized Eventbrite's entire business. In this episode, Mike Maples Jr interviews Julia Hartz to discuss what founders seeking greatness can learn from her varied experiences and choices along the way.
Lessons of Greatness: Price Before You Build
August 02, 2021 07:05 - 11 minutes - 10.1 MBMost startups postpone pricing decisions until after the product is developed. They HOPE they can make money rather than KNOW they will at the outset. In this Lesson of Greatness, pricing guru Madhavan Ramanujam shows us that without a price, you literally don't have a product. Therefore, we should follow some of the best practices aligned with having the willingness to pay discussion early and in the most effective ways.
Pricing Guru Madhavan Ramanujam: How Smart Startups Design Their Products Around the Price
August 02, 2021 07:00 - 35 minutes - 32.5 MBNew startups fail for many reasons. Perhaps the most obvious is they can't get people to pay the necessary price for their products. Madhavan Ramanujam's book Monetizing Innovation, is the foremost guide in the industry for startups who want to make pricing a core part of their success rather than an afterthought. In this interview, Mike Maples Jr of Floodgate talks to Madhavan about the key success factors as well as mistakes to avoid.
Lessons of Greatness: Find your wave before your market
July 19, 2021 20:24 - 13 minutes - 12.1 MBThe best startups almost always ride a wave that represents a sea change. Such waves give the founders the power to show up with a radically different idea that changes the subject -- and the future. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples Jr talks about how the example of Jerry Yang and David Filo at Yahoo illustrates this perfectly and how you can leverage this insight as a founder seeking your own path to greatness for your startup.
Jerry Yang: How Yahoo went from a hobby to the early King of the Internet
July 19, 2021 20:20 - 37 minutes - 34 MBBefore Google or Facebook; prior to the days of snapping, tweeting, and texting....Yahoo was the original King of the Internet. But in the early days, Jerry Yang and David Filo weren't sure if it was even a valid business. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of Floodgate interviews Jerry Yang about what it was like to learn that what started out as a hobby was destined for business greatness.
Lessons of Greatness: Hire like your life depends on it
June 28, 2021 14:24 - 12 minutes - 11.4 MBMany startup founders would agree that team building is the most important part of startup success. But very few startups actually live it. The founders of Cloudflare offer key lessons in how to start with the right founding team, how to collaborate more effectively, how to design a company culture....and most importantly, how to make hiring the very best your top priority...for real.
Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn of Cloudflare: How to build a better Company as well as a better Internet
June 28, 2021 14:23 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBIt takes a lot of effort to build a breakthrough product. It's perhaps even rarer to design a company that endures. In this interview, Mike Maples Jr of Floodgate interviews Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn of Cloudflare to highlight what we can learn about how to get a startup's foundation right, along with recruiting, hiring, and company design.
Lessons of Greatness: Why you must master risk-taking to seize greatness
June 01, 2021 18:05 - 10 minutes - 9.6 MBMost people think that risk should be avoided. But Vinod Khosla teaches us otherwise...Risk is something people *take* when they create breakthroughs. This lesson of greatness talks about the key frameworks for why this is the case as well as how to take risks intelligently to tilt the odds in your favor.
Vinod Khosla: Your willingness to fail is what will let you succeed
June 01, 2021 18:04 - 32 minutes - 30.2 MBVinod Khosla is a Silicon Valley legend, having achieved greatness as a founder with Sun Microsystems and as one of the best venture capitalists of all time. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of Floodgate talks to Vinod about why it's wrong for breakthrough builders to play it safe and how to turn the odds in your favor when setting out to build a massive breakthrough.
Lessons of Greatness: Design your category
May 17, 2021 07:10 - 12 minutes - 11.6 MBStartups change the future so they MUST be different, rather than better. Christopher Lochhead shows us how category designers realize that different is believable from a startup, but better is not. Any powerful startup idea pre-supposes an exponentially different future, which means your startup MUST change the way the people think about the future rather than incrementally improve on the products they already use. Different forces a choice rather than a comparison. And different sticks, whi...
Christopher Lochhead: Why Legendary Startups create Categories
May 17, 2021 07:05 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBChristopher Lochhead is a bestselling author, #1-rated podcaster, and one of the best marketing minds of our time. As one of the co-inventors of category design, Christopher offers valuable insights for startups wanting to stand out in an ever noisier world. In this episode, Mike Maples Jr talks to Christopher Lochhead to clarify what category design is and why it’s vital for founders determined to create something legendary that changes the future.
Lessons of Greatness: DESIGN for network effects
May 03, 2021 13:32 - 11 minutes - 10.6 MBMany founders claim their startups contain network effects, but many of these claims only scratch the surface. Networks that achieve greatness are designed, with many trade-offs and factors in mind regarding the "nodes," how interactions take place, what causes people to stay engaged, and the types of relationships that get created. Anu Hariharan shows us the specific decisions and trade-offs we can weigh that startups often overlook.
Anu Hariharan: How to think about network effects for your startup, from the beginning
May 03, 2021 13:25 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBAnu Hariharan from YCombinator's Continuity fund is one of Silicon Valley's top experts on network effects and how they can be applied to all types of different businesses. In this interview, Mike Maples of Floodgate talks to Anu about how a raw startup can design network effects into its business as a core strategy from the very beginning.
Lessons of Greatness: Start a Movement; not just a business
April 19, 2021 23:05 - 7 minutes - 7.12 MBDavid Sacks demonstrates how the best startup founders talk about causes much bigger than themselves or the companies they're building. Google was about organizing the world's information. Tesla was about moving the world to sustainability, not just selling cars. These startup leaders saw a world that they wanted to create and built a movement around their visions. Sacks shows us how great startup products aren't just selling a product that solves an immediate problem; they are selling a visi...
David Sacks: Legendary Startup Product Expert
April 19, 2021 23:00 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBDavid Sacks, known as one of the best startup product strategists and operators of the last 20 years, discusses key lessons learned from his tenure in the PayPal Mafia, where he was head of product, along with key takeaways as founding CEO of Yammer and what he learned from working directly with industry greats like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk.
Lessons of Greatness: Be a Learn-it-All; not a Know-it-All
April 05, 2021 15:36 - 8 minutes - 8.15 MBMaybe you've struggled with needing to seem in charge or on top of a challenging situation, even when you're unsure of what to do. If so, you've likely heard the siren song that tempts you to be a know-it-all. But Matt Mullenweg shows us how the learn-it-all is most likely to achieve greatness. Check out Mike’s interview with Bob Metcalfe (of Metcalfe’s Law) where he also discusses leadership lessons.
Matt Mullenweg: How a modest empire builder powered a huge chunk of the web
April 05, 2021 15:29 - 40 minutes - 36.9 MBWordpress CEO Matt Mullenweg talks with Mike Maples Jr of Floodgate about his early successes, setbacks, and what founders can learn from his continued growth as a manager and leader.
Lessons of Greatness: ALWAYS know your competitive edge
March 22, 2021 06:55 - 11 minutes - 10.5 MBMark Cuban shows us that it's not enough to play by the rules as they are defined. If you are going to achieve greatness as a startup, you need to find your EDGE...which means you have to outmaneuver your competition before they even engage with you on the competitive battlefield. You have to change the rules to your advantage and not just play by the rules as they are given to you. Never fall into the trap of not anticipating how a giant competitor will try to run you out of business someday...
Mark Cuban: You only have to be right once...if you take big enough swings along the way
March 22, 2021 06:46 - 44 minutes - 40.8 MBMike Maples of Floodgate talks to Mark Cuban about a wide range of topics with a common theme...you have to go after opportunities where the stakes are high enough that when you win, you can win BIG. And as a corollary, you have to anticipate that giant competitors will try to stop you because otherwise, you are thinking too small.
Lessons of Greatness: Thinking in Bets
March 08, 2021 10:52 - 12 minutes - 11.2 MBAnnie Duke shows us that making high-quality decisions is one of the most important skills we can build for improving our odds of success in startups and in life. It's also a skill that can be sharpened and improved over time, regardless of how uncertain the circumstances. By adopting scientifically-proven frameworks from her books "Thinking in Bets" and "How to Decide," we can make better predictions and choices more often and with more confidence.
Annie Duke: Decision-making Secrets from a World Series of Poker Champion
March 08, 2021 10:36 - 38 minutes - 34.8 MB(04:51) - Explaining what makes a decision good or bad (6:36) - On how memory creep impacts our view of Hilary Clinton’s 2016 campaign (11:30) - On the use of a knowledge tree to inform decision making (16:59) - Looking at Pete Carrol’s controversial decision in the Super Bowl (26:16) - On founders falling into a trap around pricing their product (38:08) - When to make informed decisions and follow a process
Lessons of Greatness: Get REAL
February 22, 2021 08:30 - 9 minutes - 9.1 MBTim Ferriss' success shows the value of building real things for real people rather than creating abstract approximations that represent what's real. The lessons of getting real apply directly to startups who want to avoid the trap of unshaped work and indirect understanding of what customers are truly desperate for. Check out Mike’s interviews with Steve Blank for more learnings on product-market fit.
How Tim Ferriss found product-market fit for “The Four Hour Workweek”
February 22, 2021 08:05 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MB(2:47) - Tim looks back at the origins of the 4-Hour Workweek and early incarnations of the book (9:30) - Mike and Tim discuss the idea of talking to real customers and of “getting real” to increase the chances of your startup’s success (12:41) - Tim offers his thoughts on category design and the importance of creating a category, as well as working in categories where there were few competitors (18:02) - Tim discusses the marketing ideas behind the 4-Hour Workweek and finding p...
Welcome to Season 2!
February 22, 2021 08:00 - 8 minutes - 7.76 MBIn this opener for Season 2, Floodgate Co-Founder Mike Maples, Jr talks sets the agenda for a new season of Starting Greatness and plans for taking the show and content to the next level.
Lessons of Greatness: You are Yoda, not Luke
July 27, 2020 17:31 - 8 minutes - 7.74 MBNancy Duarte emphasizes that storytelling has been one of the most compelling tools of persuasion for centuries. But founders embracing the storytelling form often make a crucial mistake: They cast themselves as the protagonist in the hero's journey, rather than the specific people they intend to persuade. Getting storytelling right means the founder is the mentor of the story (ie Yoda), rather than the hero (ie Luke.) This is true whether the audience is the customer, future employees, inve...
Nancy Duarte: Why storytelling is vital to entrepreneurship
July 27, 2020 17:26 - 38 minutes - 35.1 MBNancy Duarte has helped people like Al Gore tell an inconvenient truth, as well as some of the most important tech execs, get their stories told. She has cracked the code in applying story patterns to business communication. In this interview, Mike Maples, Jr of Floodgate asks Nancy for the most important ways that founders can leverage storytelling to turn their movements from ideas to reality.
Lessons of Greatness: Why the world needs breakthrough builders; How it can be you
July 06, 2020 19:54 - 12 minutes - 11 MBThe future doesn't happen to us: It happens because of us. In this Lesson of Greatness, we introduce backcasting as a tool for entrepreneurs or people in any field who want to create a future that is meaningfully better and doesn't just bring forward the baggage of the past.