Billion Dollar Business Philosophies With Hubspot Co-Founder Dha…
About This Episode
HubSpot co-founder Dharmesh Shah discusses his business philosophies, including why he prefers renting over owning property and his 24-hour angel investment rule. He also breaks down the success of his viral Wordle clone, WordPlay, and introduces frameworks for skill acquisition and high-velocity iteration.
Episode Description
Show Notes
- 02:10- Why renting is better than owning
- 25:20- Framework for three types of employees
- 35:05- Why Dharmesh built WordPlay
- 01:07:55- Driving value through an intersection of skills (Trillion dollar Venn diagram)
- 01:12:10- Why Shaan is starting the next Pixar
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- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more.
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- Additional episodes you might enjoy:
- #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits
- #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future
- #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto
- * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett
- #218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates
- Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More
- How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More
Links
- * HubSpot
- * Why to Start a Startup in a Bad Economy article
- * WordPlay
- * Maven writing course
- * Shaan tweet about starting the next Pixar
- * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel.
- * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter.
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Key Takeaways
The 'Trillion Dollar Venn Diagram' suggests that the intersection of two rare, reinforcing skills (like engineering and copywriting) makes you exponentially more valuable than being top-tier in only one.
Startups should prioritize 'meaningful iteration' by shipping early and often; high-frequency feedback loops consistently produce higher-quality outcomes than long-term planning without execution.
When hiring for early-stage companies, look for 'diamonds in the rough' with a borderline pathological obsession for specific problems rather than high-cost 'press release hires' from big tech companies.
Business Ideas Mentioned
The New Age Pixar
Content & Media
Chess.com for Word Games
Marketplace
Sustainable Play-to-Earn Gaming Wallet
SaaS