Lenny's Podcast: Product | Career | Growth

Pattern Breakers: How to find a breakthrough startup idea | Mike Maples, Jr. (Founding Partner at Floodgate, ex-Product at Silicon Graphics)

July 7, 2024

AI Summary

5 min read

Mike Maples Jr., founding partner at Floodgate and early investor in companies like Twitter, Lyft, and Twitch, analyzed original pitch decks and founder stories from dozens of 100x startups. He identified three elements common to breakthrough ideas—inflections, insights, and founder-future fit—and three actions that turn ideas into movements: building movements, storytelling, and disagreeableness. These enable startups to fight asymmetric battles against incumbents by proposing radically different futures rather than incremental improvements.

Core Elements of Breakthrough Ideas

Breakthrough ideas combine inflections (external turning points like the iPhone 4S GPS chip enabling Lyft's ride-matching or smartphone cameras powering Instagram), non-consensus insights (truths revealing how to harness inflections, such as "Airbnb for cars," earned through hands-on tinkering and savoring surprises), and founder-future fit (where the founder's background uniquely suits the future, like young tinkerers such as Marc Andreessen for Netscape or Detroit insiders for Applied Intuition's AV simulations). Inflections can be technological (broadband for Twitch), regulatory (telemedicine laws during COVID), or belief-based (post-COVID acceptance of remote work). Stress-test them: identify the specific new capability, who it empowers and how, and conditions for realization. Insights must be n

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What you'll learn

1 *(02:47) **Why Mike wrote Pattern Breakers**
2 *(08:24) **Research method: Time capsules of winners**
3 *(11:52) **Book structure: Ideas (3 powers) vs. Actions**
4 *(15:25) **Inflections: External turning points**
5 *(28:11) **Insights: Non-consensus truths from surprises**
6 *(47:39) **Founder-Future Fit: Prepared minds live in the future**
7 *(63:42) **Actions: Build movements via storytelling**

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Show Notes

Mike Maples, Jr. is a legendary early-stage startup investor and a co-founder and partner at Floodgate. He’s made early bets on transformative companies like Twitter, Lyft, Twitch, Okta, Rappi, and Applied Intuition and is one of the pioneers of seed-stage investing as a category. He’s been on the Forbes Midas List eight times and enjoys sharing the lessons he’s learned from his years studying iconic companies. In his new book, Pattern Breakers: Why Some Start-Ups Change the Future, co-authored with Peter Ziebelman, he discusses what he’s found separates startups and founders that break through and change the world from those that don’t. After spending years reviewing the notes and decks from the thousands of startups he’s known over the past two decades, he’s uncovered three ways that breakthrough founders think and act differently. In our conversation, Mike talks about:

• The three elements of breakthrough startup ideas

• Why you need to both think and act differently

• How to avoid the “comparison trap” and “conformity trap”

• The importance of movements, storytelling, and healthy disagreeableness in startup success

• How to apply pattern-breaking principles within large companies

• Mike’s one piece of advice for founders

• Much more

Pre-order Mike’s book here and get a second signed copy for free. Limited copies are available, so order ASAP: patternbreakers.com/lenny.

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