Uri Levine
Uri Levine is a co-founder of Waze (which was acquired by Google for $1.3 billion in 2013), along with nine other companies (including another company he sold for over $1 billion). He’s also been on 20 boards and has been an advisor to over 50 startups. He recently released a new chapter of his best-selling book Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution, which provides a guide to surviving crises at your company.
Career (separate track) Skills
Deep passion for the problem is the only engine powerful enough to sustain a founder through the inevitable highs and lows of the startup roller coaster.
"The journey is really hard and complex and long and so you have to be in love in order to go into this journey because otherwise it's not going to be successful. You really want to be passionate. If y..."
Overlay: Zero-to-One / Founder Skills
Successful startups begin with a personal frustration that is then validated by talking to dozens of strangers to ensure the problem is widespread.
"So for me, it's usually personal frustration that leads me to start to think about it, whether or not we can change it. I hate traffic jams, right? I hate leaving money on the table, right? So there a..."
Fundraising success depends on immediate impact, so lead with your most impressive data on the first slide to grab attention for the duration of the pitch.
"Most people are missing the most important slide of their presentation is the first slide. This slide is going to be presented for the longest period of time. This is the place that you're going to pu..."
To capture an audience's attention, frame your startup's story around the specific problem being solved or the value created rather than the product's features.
"If you start with the story with, 'The problem we are solving is,' Then you focus on the problem. If your story start with, 'The value that we create for you is,' then you focus on the user. The last..."
Strategy & Positioning Skills
A successful pivot often involves maintaining the core problem while radically changing the delivery model to overcome user adoption friction.
"We started that as a B2C and then we realized that this is way harder than we think it is, and we ended up with converting that into B2B, which turns out to be very successful for us. And so occasiona..."
Team & Organization Skills
Making the mistake of keeping a bad hire for too long can destroy company culture and drive away your top talent.
"Every time that you hire someone new, mark your calendars for 30 days down the road and ask yourself one question, knowing what I know today, would I hire this person? If the answer is no, fire them i..."