159. Rand Fishkin Discusses His New Book Lost & Founder And Reveals The Truth About Startup Culture in Silicon Valley. (Why Venture Capital Or External Funding Isn’t Always The Right Answer)

Rand Fishkin is a founder of Moz.com and he has recently launched a new venture SparkToro.com.

Rand’s on our podcast twice already in episode 38 and episode 126.

Rand always speaks about his journey with great openness and honesty and that’s why I love having him on the show.

Today he’s here to share his learnings from his journey at Silicon Valley. He shares some of the insights from his new book Lost and Founder that gets published in April 2018.

Related Episodes:

• 116. Brian Clark — Founder of Copyblogger — On How He Built An Eight Figure Business With ZERO External Funding!
• 002. James Schramko On How To Use The Recurring Income To Maximise Profit And Fund
• 038. Rand Fishkin – How To Create Great SEO-Friendly Content Plus Key Trends In Search
• 126. Rand Fishkin (Wizard of Moz) And I Discuss One vs Multiple Domains; One vs Multiple Product Lines; How Mobile Is Driving Search; And What That Means For Your Content Strategy

Key Points and Insights:

• 3:09 – Rand Fishkin shares some insights from his new book “Lost and Founder”
• 6:55 – The new forms of funding for start ups like bootstrapping and crowdfunding (which have been more recent evolutions)
• 13:22 – The definition of “success” for venture capitalists
• 17:07 – When venture capital actually makes sense for businesses
• 21:34 – The story that Seth Godin shares about his experience meeting Sergey in his podcast Akimbo — and how that story illustrates the importance of organic growth
• 27:20 – The importance of organisational culture in building a sustainable business. Google’s culture vs Facebook’s culture
• 29:20 – A glimpse into some stories shared in Lost and Founder
• 36:40 – Rand and Ash discuss the biggest challenges people face when it comes to growing organically, and how to overcome them
• 37:26 – Rand talks about heuristic bias and how it influences our influence our approach to business