Like a bad bitch walk pass me I’m on the corner bricked up/
Pussy niggaz get tore up/
They say damn E, you say the WILDEST shit/
Yeh, coz I’m ALL butt/
Unfortunately a bar…
Naval Ravikant’s advice to startup founders: “You only have to be right once”
Naval reflects on how it took 13 years after starting his first startup before eventually succeeding with AngelList (valued at $4.1B in 2022).
“Entrepreneurial ventures fail all the time. Most of my companies failed. I actually started seven companies, and I’ve launched about 40 or 50 projects over my career. And AngelList is the first one that I would truly say is product, market, entrepreneur fit for me that might succeed down the road.”
He tells the audience:
“It’s a low hit rate over your career, but you only have to be right once… So just keep trying, just keep iterating… a lot of it is market timing and you learn a lot of lessons.”
One of my favorite quotes on this topic comes from Sam Altman:
“’I will fail many times, and I will be really right once’ is the entrepreneurs’ way. You have to give yourself a lot of chances to get lucky.”
Video source: @twistartups@jason (2013)
“All new fails” - Zynga CEO Mark Pincus explains his favorite product principle
“All new fails. If all new worked, we’d be using new stuff all the time. But how often do you change what’s on the front of your iPhone? How often do the top 10 or 25 apps change? They haven’t changed in 8 years because all new fails. A million new apps a year — they all fail.”
This realization led Mark to develop a new approach to building products that he calls “Proven. Better. New.” And he explains how he used it to build Zynga Poker into the largest poker site in the world.
“De-risk it. Start with with what’s proven. You don’t have the right to change proven. You should copy every pixel of [an experience that already works — legally, of course]… What you think is ‘better’ is called ‘new.’ When you say it’s better, that’s because you’re naive. Grow up. I’m guilty of this too — we all are. We get emotional and fall in love with our own ideas, so we need something to hold us accountable.”
Zynga Poker copied every other online poker game as their starting point.
The next step is to add one thing that’s undeniably better for users. For Zynga poker this was not having to download the application. “You lose half your users every time they have to click download,” Mark explains. “I don’t even need to ask, I know that’s better.”
The last step is to add something new that might work. For Zynga Poker, this was adding pictures of real people — often your friends — to the game. The game was an instant hit.
Mark urges founders to look at the product through your user’s eyes — not your peers:
“This isn’t about getting respect in this little bubble [of Silicon Valley]… This is about normal, real-life humans. They don’t care if you copied. They don’t care how innovative it is. All they care about is, ‘Does it feel better?’ And they can’t even tell you why… Innovation often comes in smaller bits.”
Video source: @speedrun (2025)
I park meat in her, leave girl legs parallel;
then dip like I neva met girl, that’s backwards as hell;
I parked in this fine girl too long, now she sayin I owe her;
We can work something out, so I blow her;
She love it when I rub it down, wax on wax off she call me master shift womb;
I go dumb on that pussy, ear drums ringing like I’m sick tune;
Auto sick zoom;
I pilot land it on her back, like that’s my missi-on;
Meta/
At the parlour/
She freak hoe/
Had my shades on/
It’s a freak show/
Tryna pay attention/
Moneys getting thrown like free throws/
Errybody got it/
Who she want? It’s me though/
This a literal cheat code/
No new friends/
It go both ways n I don’t keep those/
Everybody just there to peep show/
Only need kin folk/
To bump with like kilos/
The family stay close, no fugazi blowing up the spot like C4’s
Big facts/
Call it peace tax/
She for the streets if she with this that/
I choose the betta heart, to avoid mishaps/
Instead of the betta body, looking for lick backs/
I’ll miss that/
For a Whoopi that just kick back/
I rose and won/
Red on the court/
As I submit to one/
Made the run/
Then made some dumb/
Decisions that lead me a astray/
Like a shot that missed on somn/
You acting prepubescent/
Peep the lesson/
Little you know, this a blessing/
Disguised/
Check yourself or meet the weapon/
Mesmerised/
When my heater seek your melon/
Peep the stepping/
Colourized/
When I geek the system/
Flip the script and stand on sit ins/
Sheesh
Won’t interrupt an enemy while he makes a mistake/
That’s dumb silly/
An interruption to fate/
If he bake it I’ll make sure to also feed him the cake/
He not done will he/
Step on his shit soon as he release, rock his drake/
Now we’re done with it/
88K Followers 2K FollowingDesign @Cursor_ai. Early @NotionHQ, @Stripe, built startups. I make a world where anyone can make software. Aspiring k-pop idol.
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