Summaries Startup Success Startup Success Factors with Ian Hogarth: Building a Great Product, Surviving in the Market, and Sustainable Growth

This is a summary of a YouTube video "Ian Hogarth" by Y Combinator!

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The video discusses the challenges and factors that contribute to startup success, including the importance of building a great product, surviving in the market, and focusing on sustainable growth.

• 🎶
  00:00

  Songkick is a concerts app that helps fans find shows and aims to be relevant to both artists and fans, while watching startups succeed and fail can reset your sense of what is possible.
• 💼
  03:40

  Starting a startup is tough, but Dropbox and Discuss have endured and are likely to be worth 10 to 100x more than others.
• 🎬
  07:08

  Most people are only interested in a narrow set of creative works, and consolidation of rights in the entertainment industry makes it difficult for startups to transform the industry without buying support from rights holders.
• 💰
  12:02

  Joining hit startups or being involved in multiple startups may be more profitable due to the randomness of the market.
• 🎶
  14:45

  Songkick struggled with low adoption until they added additional features and focused on high-quality, comprehensive data to become a trusted authority for concert fans.
• 📈
  17:56

  Airbnb grew through killer product, word of mouth, referral program, PR, and creative marketing strategies, while Songkick's growth was driven by becoming the canonical page for concerts and tours, optimizing site for content discovery, and mobile and word of mouth, but they have not yet found an economic model to make money from users.
• 💡
  22:07

  Building a successful startup requires interdependent factors such as gratification, growth, revenue, and team, with a focus on great products, difficult problems, and sustainable growth.
• 🎶
  27:06

  Surviving in the market is key to startup success, allowing for growth and adaptation to new platform shifts and changes.

Detailed summary

• 🎶
  00:00

  Songkick is a concerts app that helps fans find shows and aims to be relevant to both artists and fans, while watching startups succeed and fail can reset your sense of what is possible.

  • Ian Hogarth is the co-founder and CEO of Songkick, a Y Combinator-funded service that helps fans find out when their favorite artists are coming to town.
  • Songkick is a concerts app that aims to solve the problem of finding shows and hopes to be relevant to both artists and fans.
  • Watching startups succeed and fail around you can reset your sense of what to be scared by and what is possible, as exponential value creation can lead to crazy exponential curves.
• 💼
  03:40

  Starting a startup is tough, but Dropbox and Discuss have endured and are likely to be worth 10 to 100x more than others.

  • Starting a successful startup is hard, as evidenced by the fact that many startups from their batch were shut down or had an early exit, but Dropbox and Discuss endured and are likely to be worth 10 to 100x more than the others, with Dropbox being an incredible company founded by humble and down-to-earth founders.
  • Starting a music startup can be challenging, so it's important to understand the game and nurture resilience, as exemplified by successful founders who have faced difficulties.
  • The speaker did not provide a clear TLDR, but suggested watching Dalton's advice on YouTube for successful startup tips.
• 🎬
  07:08

  Most people are only interested in a narrow set of creative works, and consolidation of rights in the entertainment industry makes it difficult for startups to transform the industry without buying support from rights holders.

  • Founders building startups in entertainment should be aware that most people are only interested in a narrow set of creative works, and a small number of creators drive most activity and revenue for these industries.
  • Most creators in the music and entertainment industries struggle for a long time and are happy to transfer rights for financial stability, unlike tech where failure can lead to a great job at a big company.
  • Few companies own all the rights in the entertainment industry due to the consolidation caused by the transference of rights from creators to middlemen.
  • Consolidation of rights in the entertainment industry makes it difficult for startups to transform the industry without buying support from rights holders, but larger technology companies can force things to happen faster.
  • To build a successful company in an industry, it is important to understand the problems of both the consumers and the industry, and the level of consolidation in the industry determines whether to partner with incumbents or compete with them.
• 💰
  12:02

  Joining hit startups or being involved in multiple startups may be more profitable due to the randomness of the market.

  • Stripe worked with banks instead of fighting against them, and it's important to understand the startup game before playing it.
  • Startups are not a rational game for financial success, and joining hit companies or being involved in multiple startups may be more profitable due to the randomness of the market.
  • The main reason to build a startup is to solve a specific problem, but it involves a lot of stress and a good likelihood of failure, and success depends on three engines: gratification, growth, and economic.
• 🎶
  14:45

  Songkick struggled with low adoption until they added additional features and focused on high-quality, comprehensive data to become a trusted authority for concert fans.

  • Songkick launched with a personalized concert alert plugin for Mac users, but struggled with low adoption until they added additional features and conducted surveys to understand the gratifying experience of never missing a show.
  • Improved streaming services and APIs for mobile devices made it easier to provide a better concert experience, with better underlying concert data being a key lesson learned.
  • To become a trusted authority for fans, it is important to focus on getting high-quality, comprehensive data, even if it takes up 80% of your time.
  • Data is the linchpin for solving the gratification engine with many levels of refinement that compound on each other.
• 📈
  17:56

  Airbnb grew through killer product, word of mouth, referral program, PR, and creative marketing strategies, while Songkick's growth was driven by becoming the canonical page for concerts and tours, optimizing site for content discovery, and mobile and word of mouth, but they have not yet found an economic model to make money from users.

  • To achieve substantial growth with consumer products, focus on improving the onboarding experience and utilize word of mouth, paid acquisition, SEO, and API widget distribution.
  • Airbnb grew through various aspects of growth such as killer product, word of mouth, optimizing referral program, PR, and creative marketing strategies, while Songkick's growth was driven by the insight of becoming the canonical page for concerts and tours, leading to beneficial effects such as social referrals, SEO, industry linking, and distribution API partnerships.
  • Songkick optimized their site for better content discovery, built products for artists to link to them more easily, and experienced growth through mobile and word of mouth, but have not yet found an economic model to make money from users.
  • Initially, revenue was generated through affiliate deals with ticketing companies, but to reach optimal revenue, they need to partner with the industry to access inventory and find economic alignment with rights holders.
  • London has 25 concerts available for purchase through the Songkick app, which is an exciting development.
• 💡
  22:07

  Building a successful startup requires interdependent factors such as gratification, growth, revenue, and team, with a focus on great products, difficult problems, and sustainable growth.

  • Gratification, growth, revenue, and team are all interdependent in building a successful startup, with growth being easier with access to revenue and an economic engine.
  • Having a great product is the most important factor for word of mouth marketing, as demonstrated by Songkick's partnership with YouTube.
  • The caliber of the team that can be recruited and retained in a startup is dependent on the difficulty of the problem being solved, and the most sophisticated and in-demand venture capitalists are sometimes the best to fund hard ideas.
  • To sustainably grow a team, a great economic engine is necessary as it provides career growth opportunities and is dependent on growth, teams, and economics.
  • Understanding that everything in the game of startups is connected is crucial for building an exceptional business.
  • To be successful in creating a startup, it is important to have a computer science degree, experience in making products people like, and insight into economics, and to develop resilience and not give up.
• 🎶
  27:06

  Surviving in the market is key to startup success, allowing for growth and adaptation to new platform shifts and changes.

  • Despite facing bleak times and unsuccessful attempts at growth, Songkick eventually succeeded and now has 10 million users, proving that survival is a growth strategy.
  • Surviving in the market allows for the opportunity to benefit from new platform shifts and changes, expanding the potential for startup success.
  • Believes that live music can change lives and wants to create a better future for live music by making it more accessible and true to the intimate experience between artists and fans.
  • Create a user research lab to regularly get individual feedback and improve the user experience of your product.
  • Start your company with people you can count on, build on top of a long-standing and trusted relationship, work with the industry, understand the game and what drives success, and nurture your resilience to get through hard times.