A startup playbook by Sam Altman

March 05, 2024

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Welcome to Startup Strategist. It's Tuesday, and today we have two news stories, one article, and 5 resources for you.

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  • News: (1) “Mews, the hotel SaaS startup, books $110M at a $1.2B valuation” (TechCrunch), (2) “Anthropic reveals new models” (NBC)

  • The startup playbook by Sam Altman

  • Resource: Elon Musk quotes, how to get startup ideas, and more.

  • StratupAI Idea: Employee Scheduling Software

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News

“Mews, the hotel SaaS startup, books $110M at a $1.2B valuation”(TechCrunch)

According to TechCrunch, Mews raised $110 million in a funding round led by Kinnevik, valuing it at $1.2 billion. The funding will help expand its SaaS tools for hotel management, focusing on front-desk operations, payments, reservations, and guest services.

“Anthropic reveals new models” (NBC)

According to NBC, AI startup Anthropic launched Claude 3 models, claiming superiority over OpenAI and Google's AI. The models excel in tasks like transcribing notes and translating languages, with a focus on safety and accuracy improvements. Anthropic acknowledges areas for improvement, such as detecting hallucinations and harmful content.

Startup Playbook by YC

At this stage of the process for the guidebook, we’re reviewing what’s already out there; business/entrepreneur/startup books, interviews, articles, etc. 

As I was doing this, I came across a playbook written in 2015 or so by Sam Altman. 

Their justification for creating it was that they “thought it might help us scale Y Combinator if we could distill the most generalizable parts of this advice into a sort of playbook we could give our companies.” He continues, “Most of this will not be new to people who have read a lot of what YC partners have written—the goal is to get it into one place.”

One of the first observations Altman makes in the book is, “[Successful founders] all started with a product that their early users loved so much they told other people about it. If you fail to do this, you will fail. If you deceive yourself and think your users love your product when they don’t, you will still fail. The startup graveyard is littered with people who thought they could skip this step.”

For our guidebook, we plan on tailoring it more to our situation, which will hopefully make it practical. In this vein, something similar I see being done is by https://smallbets.com, which is a community that focuses less on audacious or higher barrier-to-entry goals, which may be a better philosophy for early-stage entrepreneurs who want to experiment, learn, and validate at a smaller scale.

5 Resources

StratupAI Idea: Employee Scheduling Software

“Managing employee schedules can be a cumbersome task for many businesses. Finding the right balance between employee availability, shift preferences, and business needs can be time-consuming and challenging. A startup could develop a user-friendly B2B scheduling software that allows businesses to easily create, manage, and optimize employee schedules. The software could include features such as shift swapping, availability management, automated scheduling based on demand forecasting, and communication tools to keep employees informed of schedule changes. By streamlining the scheduling process, businesses can improve employee satisfaction, reduce scheduling errors, and ultimately increase productivity.”

Disclaimer: The startup ideas shared in this forum are offered for general consideration and discussion. Individuals utilizing these concepts are encouraged to exercise independent judgment and undertake due diligence per legal and regulatory requirements.

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That’s all for today, thanks for reading. See you on Friday.

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The startup ideas, strategies, and suggestions shared are provided for general discussion and informational purposes only. Any individual or entity considering implementing these concepts should exercise independent judgment and conduct thorough due diligence in accordance with legal, regulatory, and industry-specific requirements. Startup Strategist does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or suitability of any information shared. It is recommended to consult with legal, financial, and other relevant professionals before proceeding with any business ventures or decisions.