Sam Altman on super successful companies, Kobe Bryant on being great, and Airbnb's unconventional fundraising strategy

Welcome back to the Z Fellows newsletter! Every Monday we share 3 ideas - to help you build companies, ship products, and create your life's work.

1: Sam Altman on super successful companies

• They are obsessed with the quality of the product/experience. Almost a little too obsessed—they spend a lot of time on details that at first glance wouldn’t seem to be really important.

• They are obsessed with talent. The founders take great pride in the quality of their team and do whatever it takes to get the best people to join them.

• They can explain the vision for the company in a few clear words. This is most striking in contrast to companies that require multiple complicated sentences to explain, which never seem to do really well.

• They generate revenue very early on in their lives.  Often as soon as they get their first user.

• They grow organically.  And they are generally skeptical of inorganic strategies like big partnership deals and to a lesser extent PR.

• They are focused on growth. The founders always know their user and revenue numbers.

• They have a whatever-it-takes attitude. Mediocre founders try to hire people for the parts that they don't like.  Great founders just do whatever they think is in the best interest of the company, even if they're not "passionate" about that part of the business.

Source: Super successful companies by Sam Altman

2: Kobe Bryant on being great

“If you want to be really great at something, you have to truly care about it. If you want to be great in a particular area, you have to obsess over it. 

A lot of people say they want to be great, but they are not willing to make the sacrifices necessary to achieve greatness.

They have other concerns, whether important or not, and they spread themselves out. That’s totally fine. After all, greatness is not for everybody.

What I’m saying is greatness isn’t easy to achieve. It requires a lot of time, a lot of sacrifices. It requires a lot of tough choices.

It requires your loved ones to sacrifice, too, so you have to have an understanding circle of family and friends.

People don’t always understand how much effort from how many people goes into one person chasing a dream to be great.”

Source: The Mamba Mentality by Kobe Bryant

3: Airbnb’s unique fundraising strategy

In 2008, Brian Chesky sold cereal boxes to prevent Airbnb from going bankrupt, raising $30,000 in the process:

Best of The Week

See you next Monday,

- The Z Fellows Team

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