1) Are you a Starter, Builder, or Super-Scaler? I'm a Builder-- I look for startups with a proof of concept ready to scale and then scale them. But I always wanted to start a company "from scratch." Until I learned, I'm not a starter-- the hard way.

A thread...

2) A Starter enjoys building companies from zero to one. This person is comfortable with early startup risk and ambiguity and appreciates the limited resources available. S/he tends to have a general set of skills required for this “everybody grab a shovel” stage of a company...

3) A Builder enjoys working in a startup w/ a proof of concept that’s ready to scale. Challenge is to recruit & organize discrete teams to build projects in parallel. Now, startups “divide and conquer” & define roles in more focused, disciplined ways. Now you can build more!

4) A Super-Scaler enjoys working at a large organization to help it grow bigger & to excel. These folks have increasingly specific skills & domain expertise. They also enjoy large organizations' ability to “dent the universe,” given they have more resources & a broader footprint.

5) I knew for most of my career that I wasn't a super-scaler-- I have a broad set of skills & an allergy to systems/processes that large companies adopt. At Netflix, I had taken 1 statistics course, which made my Builder job feasible, but I'd need a Ph.D. in stats to Super-Scale.

6) So on to my next job as Builder & CPO at Chegg -- a startup with a proof-of-concept that was ready to scale. I implemented the first AB tests there, hired teams that could do textbook rental & homework help in parallel, then helped the company to IPO in late 2013. Felt good!

7) But what about being a Starter? Back in 1994, I was a co-founder at Creative Wonders but this was really a startup with a safety net -- a joint venture between Electronic Arts & Disney/ABC. At the "start," we had 30 people and a proof of concept, so it was really a "Build."

8) I imagined I would start a startup before my career ended, but there were clues I didn't have the tolerance for risk & ambiguity. In a meeting w/ Irv Grousbeck, the entrepreneur who invented the cable TV industry, he told me, "Gib, you're too nice to be a startup CEO." A clue.

9) After selling FamilyWonder to Sega, I did take 2 years off & baked startup ideas with a battle buddy, Louis R. We had ideas & a dev team ready to prototype them, plus funding! But we kept talking ourselves out of our ideas -- I was unwilling to close my eyes & jump. Humbling!

10) So, almost all of my career has been focused on "Building." I look for startups with a proof of concept that are ready to scale & help them grow. I love having resources to build lots of stuff but am mainly free of the allergic reactions that large companies provoke.

11) So what are you? I'm a Builder, but many are a combo of Start/Build or Build/Super-Scale. If you can figure this out, you can set yourself up for success & avoid the pain that Starts & Super-scaling provoked for me. Want to learn more? Read this: https://askgib.substack.com/p/3-answers-to-3-questions?r=159d3&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&utm_source=copy