I jumped into startups in 2014 after finally walking away from law. Here's how I built up my startup knowledge from scratch.
The grind
- 10+ hour days, 6-7 days a week for 3 years straight
- Every spare moment went to consuming information I could immediately apply at work
- Startup podcasts on the subway commute
- Reading business books at my desk before the workday started
- Diving deep into First Round Review and other high-quality, tactical sites
- Volunteering for absolutely everything at work that could expose me to new parts of the business
- Having effectively 0 social life
The key thing about what necessitated that grind: I had no idea what I was doing and had no network in the startup world.
I had to make up for my complete ignorance with brute force effort.
What didn't work
In-person networking events were the worst use of my time.
They attracted people like me (not useful!), the information was too surface-level, and the opportunity cost was massive.
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