Left: Aga Khan Museum, Toronto | Right: My home office
And just like that January and February is history, and it’s finally March.
SABA SAYS ::: GO EXPLORE
Later this year I am heading to Canada, twice. First to Montreal for the annual staff conference for Techstars, then to Toronto for Collision Conference - the fastest growing tech conference in North America. Other than having the best oysters I’ve ever had, Toronto and Montreal continue being on the ‘up and coming cities’ list - and for good reason. It’s the home of Shopify, ElementAI, Ritual, WealthSimple, and Mejuri. It’s actually also the home of three Techstars accelerators.
Photo: © Saba Karim
SABA SAYS ::: STARTUPS RULE THE WORLD
The origin of my saying, hashtag and soon to be t-shirt, “Startups Rule The World”, was coined when I woke up one day and realized my life, and a lot of other people's lives, are surrounded by, if not controlled by startups. Think about how you get to the office, how to you work out, and stay connected with friends and family. They are all, or were effectively, startups at one point.
Just seeing how prominent Airbnb is, compared to hotel chains - makes me further confirm this notion. Think about this: the biggest accommodation company in the world doesn’t own any buildings. The most valuable transportation company in the world doesn't own any cars.
Isn’t that fascinating?
SABA SAYS ::: READ THIS
I have recently become (re)obsessed with Naval Ravikant, a.k.a. The Angel Philosopher - co-founder of AngelList and avid investor. He writes micro-blogs on nav.al, simultaneously tweets and puts out podcasts - so go consume how you want. He’s not your typical tech guy - very introspective and wise - and considered one of the greatest thinkers and entrepreneurs of our generation.
Just to give you a taste, here is one of my favorite quotes of his:
"The three big ones in life are wealth, health, and happiness. We pursue them in that order but their importance is in the reverse."
He has also written a series on ‘How To Get Rich (without getting lucky)” which is highly regarded too. Here’s quote from that:
"You don’t get rich by spending your time to save money. You get rich by saving your time to make money."
TALKING ::: TECHSTARS
Techstars isn’t just an accelerator. It is a mentorship-driven accelerator, emphasizing that one of the core benefits is mentorship and coaching. This is unlike most other accelerators, that focus on funding, branding and such.
And as someone that’s had a mentor since his first job, I have tips on the four types of mentor relationships I think every founder should have:
Someone who is a couple years ahead of you. You want to let them guide you to what’s happening in today’s fast changing world and follow in their footsteps. They’re ahead of you, and always will be, but this will give you an edge over the people at your stage.
Someone who is a two to three decades older than you, so they can help you with the big picture stuff. They get technology + trends (having seen decades more), but they get people and business like no-one else. Nothing beats a classic uncle or neighbor, who crushed it in the 90’s.
Someone who you mentor. There is immense benefit in mentoring others. It helps keeps you grounded, and forces you to listen to your own advice.
Lastly, someone who gives you bad advice. We all have that one friend who tells you they’re launching this, and you should do that, yet, they haven’t seen any success. Hence, listening to them, if nothing else, will calm your mind and give you confidence. More on rejecting most advice by Naval here.
POPULAR ::: POSTS
Twitter: A couple weeks ago, a tweet of mine went semi-viral and reached close to 30,000 people… which was the inspiration for this updates title. Here it is:
Not sure what made it get so much steam, but look how my impressions it got, and how it’s just lifted it up since then too.
Also, 125K impressions in 28 days? That’s bloody humbling!
On mentoring:
Me when mentoring startups:
The good thing is I’m going to be honest.
The bad thing is I’m going to be honest.
THE ROSE ::: ACTIVITY
Thorn: Founders who say things like “It would be all better if I could just code”. My issue with this is:
It’s never been easier to learn coding, and,
Coding won’t solve your problems. You still need to validate your idea and build something people want. And you can do that through No-Code, MVP or mockups.
Rose: Less meetings = increased productivity. Taught by Naval:
If someone says let’s meet in person > see if you can do a video call instead
If someone wants a video call > see if a phone call suffices
If someone wants a call > see if it can be turned into an email
If it’s an email > see if you can answer it by chat/text
Bud: If you enjoy the content I write, and want to see more of it, you may be interested in Saba Says X. It is an SMS service I am launching, where you’ll receive small bites of exclusive content, knowledge and articles weekly by text. Just reply if that sounds interesting to you.
Au revoir!