Lessons from a two-time unicorn builder, 50-time startup advisor, and 20-time company board member

Uri Levine is the co-founder of Waze and several other companies, including two unicorns, and an experienced startup advisor and board member who has also written a handbook for entrepreneurs. The conversation covers his core principle of falling in love with the problem, how to validate ideas and navigate product-market fit and phased company growth, and practical advice on fundraising, hiring and firing, and understanding users.

01Key learnings

• Start with a meaningful problem you feel personally passionate about, since the journey is long and hard and passion sustains drive and engages others.
• Validate a problem by speaking with many people outside your close circle; if they describe the problem in their own words, it is likely real.
• Expect a journey of failures and iterate quickly; failing fast leaves time for more attempts, which raises the odds of success.
• Focus on one stage at a time: prioritize product-market fit first, then business model or growth, and deliberately decide what not to do.
• Assess whether growth is word-of-mouth driven by frequency of use; if not, figure out the business model before investing heavily in acquisition.
• When raising money, put your strongest point on the first slide and open the pitch with it, since investors form impressions very quickly.
• Make the hard decision: 30 days after each hire, ask whether you would hire them again knowing what you know now, and act decisively if the answer is no.
• Watch real users, especially those who churn, and ask why they behave differently; this reveals what makes a product successful.

02Frameworks mentioned

Summary and takeaways written by PM Atlas; quotes are short excerpts. © the original author.