Pattern Breakers

By FloodgateBusiness Entrepreneurship Technology Education How To

Pattern Breakers episodes

July 19, 2021 Breakthrough Lessons: Find your wave before your market
The best startups almost always ride a wave that represents a sea change. Such waves give the founders the power to show up with a radically different idea that changes the subject -- and the future. In this lesson of greatness, Mike Maples Jr talks about how the example of Jerry Yang and David Filo at Yahoo illustrates this perfectly and how you can leverage this insight as a founder seeking your own path to greatness for your startup.
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even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
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14 min
July 19, 2021 Jerry Yang: How Yahoo went from a hobby to the early King of the Internet
Before Google or Facebook; prior to the days of snapping, tweeting, and texting....Yahoo was the original King of the Internet. But in the early days, Jerry Yang and David Filo weren't sure if it was even a valid business. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of Floodgate interviews Jerry Yang about what it was like to learn that what started out as a hobby was destined for business greatness.
Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
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38 min
June 28, 2021 Breakthrough Lessons: Hire like your life depends on it
Many startup founders would agree that team building is the most important part of startup success. But very few startups actually live it. The founders of Cloudflare offer key lessons in how to start with the right founding team, how to collaborate more effectively, how to design a company culture....and most importantly, how to make hiring the very best your top priority...for real.
Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
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13 min
June 28, 2021 Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn of Cloudflare: How to build a better Company as well as a better Internet
It takes a lot of effort to build a breakthrough product. It's perhaps even rarer to design a company that endures. In this interview, Mike Maples Jr of Floodgate interviews Matthew Prince and Michelle Zatlyn of Cloudflare to highlight what we can learn about how to get a startup's foundation right, along with recruiting, hiring, and company design.
Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
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45 min
June 01, 2021 Breakthrough Lessons: Why you must master risk-taking to seize greatness
Most people think that risk should be avoided. But Vinod Khosla teaches us otherwise...Risk is something people *take* when they create breakthroughs. This lesson of greatness talks about the key frameworks for why this is the case as well as how to take risks intelligently to tilt the odds in your favor.
Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
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11 min
June 01, 2021 Vinod Khosla: Your willingness to fail is what will let you succeed
Vinod Khosla is a Silicon Valley legend, having achieved greatness as a founder with Sun Microsystems and as one of the best venture capitalists of all time. In this episode, Mike Maples, Jr of Floodgate talks to Vinod about why it's wrong for breakthrough builders to play it safe and how to turn the odds in your favor when setting out to build a massive breakthrough.
Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
Follow Mike on X!
33 min
May 17, 2021 Breakthrough Lessons: Design your category
Startups change the future so they MUST be different, rather than better. Christopher Lochhead shows us how category designers realize that different is believable from a startup, but better is not. Any powerful startup idea pre-supposes an exponentially different future, which means your startup MUST change the way the people think about the future rather than incrementally improve on the products they already use. Different forces a choice rather than a comparison. And different sticks, while better gets lost in the noise. In this lesson of greatness, we cover the specific steps involved in applying category design to your startup.

Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
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13 min
May 17, 2021 Christopher Lochhead: Why Legendary Startups create Categories
Christopher Lochhead is a bestselling author, #1-rated podcaster, and one of the best marketing minds of our time. As one of the co-inventors of category design, Christopher offers valuable insights for startups wanting to stand out in an ever noisier world. In this episode, Mike Maples Jr talks to Christopher Lochhead to clarify what category design is and why it’s vital for founders determined to create something legendary that changes the future.

Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
Follow Mike on X!
39 min
May 03, 2021 Breakthrough Lessons: DESIGN for network effects
Many founders claim their startups contain network effects, but many of these claims only scratch the surface. Networks that achieve greatness are designed, with many trade-offs and factors in mind regarding the "nodes," how interactions take place, what causes people to stay engaged, and the types of relationships that get created. Anu Hariharan shows us the specific decisions and trade-offs we can weigh that startups often overlook.
Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
Follow Mike on X!
12 min
May 03, 2021 Anu Hariharan: How to think about network effects for your startup, from the beginning
Anu Hariharan from YCombinator's Continuity fund is one of Silicon Valley's top experts on network effects and how they can be applied to all types of different businesses. In this interview, Mike Maples of Floodgate talks to Anu about how a raw startup can design network effects into its business as a core strategy from the very beginning.
Check out the Pattern Breakers Blog at patternbreakers.substack.com for
even more Pattern Breaking content from Mike.
Mike's book Pattern Breakers is available now wherever you buy books.
Follow Mike on X!
37 min

About Pattern Breakers

From the publisher's feed

Host Mike Maples Jr. from venture capital firm Floodgate offers lessons from the rare startup super performers — BEFORE they were successful. Pattern Breakers features interviews with some of Silicon…