put·here
Put it here. Make sense of it later.
Pick AirDrop to send it to your Mac. No AirDrop? Email it to yourself or save it to Notes.
The phone app can’t import yet. Open this link on a Mac to put it in put·here.From finding ideas and staying alive to how to work and how to write. All 10 essays are free; each card has three points and a link, so you can pick the one that hits hardest and read it in full.
1. Good ideas are noticed, not invented. Look at problems you have yourself.
2. Better a small group who need it badly than a big group who find it "fine".
3. At the edge of a fast-changing field, what's missing becomes obvious.
- Source (official) https://paulgraham.com/startupideas.html
1. Many great ideas go undone because people unconsciously avoid tedious, hard work.
2. The essay's example: online payments frustrated developers for years, yet most chose easier projects until Stripe took it on.
3. Ask: what problem do I most wish someone else would solve for me? Hard problems have less competition.
- Source (official) https://paulgraham.com/schlep.html
1. A startup is a company designed to grow fast; everything else follows from that.
2. Use weekly growth rate as your compass, measured as new over existing, not raw numbers.
3. The essay's YC benchmark: 5–7% a week is good, 10% is exceptional, 1% means you haven't figured it out yet.
- Source (official) https://paulgraham.com/growth.html
1. Products don't take off on their own; founders push at first.
2. Recruit early users one by one and delight them personally.
3. Don't count on a big launch; narrow the market and do things by hand if you must.
- Source (official) https://paulgraham.com/ds.html
Do the math: at current growth and spending, do you reach profitability before the money runs out? Yes is default alive; no is default dead.
Managers plan in hours; makers need blocks of half a day or more.
Pick work you're suited to and genuinely curious about; if unsure, try things.
Returns to performance aren't linear: a product half as good as a rival's may win no customers at all.
Ordinary words and simple sentences are easier to read and more likely to be finished.
Writing is hard because it requires clear thinking.
With current revenue, spending and growth, work out whether you break even before the money runs out. (From: Default Alive or Default Dead? (Oct 2015))
Pick two half-days this week with no meetings, only your most important work. (From: Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule (Jul 2009))
In the plainest words: who it's for, what it solves, why now. If you can't write it clearly, you haven't thought it through yet. (From: Write Simply (Mar…
| # | Source | Type | Date | Checked |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | How to Get Startup Ideas | Official (author) | 2012-11 | 2026-10-29 |
| 2 | Schlep Blindness | Official (author) | 2012-01 | 2026-10-29 |
| 3 | Startup = Growth | Official (author) | 2012-09 | 2026-10-29 |
| 4 | Do Things That Don't Scale | Official (author) | 2013-07 | 2026-10-29 |
| 5 | Default Alive or Default Dead? | Official (author) | 2015-10 | 2026-10-29 |
| 6 | Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule | Official (author) | 2009-07 | 2026-10-29 |
| 7 | How to Do Great Work | Official (author) | 2023-07 | 2026-10-29 |
| 8 | Superlinear Returns | Official (author) | 2023-10 | 2026-10-29 |
| 9 | Write Simply | Official (author) | 2021-03 | 2026-10-29 |
| 10 | Writes and Write-Nots | Official (author) | 2024-10 | 2026-10-29 |
Note: all essays are on paulgraham.com, the author's own site, free to read. Cards 1 and 4 overlap with the first "Building alone" canvas and are shorter here.