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The James Altucher Show

He Was So Fed up with Traffic, He Redrew the Map (Literally!) | Uri Levine

The James Altucher Show

James Altucher

Education, Business

4.62.7K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2023

⏱️ 65 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Uri Levine was frustrated by traffic jams on his commute and found validation that the problem was widespread. His solution was to co-found Waze, the crowd-sourced GPS navigation platform which became a major competitor to Google Maps before being acquired by Google for $1.4 billion.But Uri's new book,  Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution: A Handbook for Entrepreneurs is not the story of Waze. It's not one story about entrepreneurship. It's completely an A-to-Z handbook for entrepreneurs with so many specific sections, like:How to do a demo,How to build a slide deckHow to make an effective presentationHow do you evaluate a term sheet?What metrics do you use to measure the growth of your company?How do you manage investors, fire people, and hire people?What deal terms need to be negotiated for the exit?This is such a valuable guide, it really is, and today's conversation builds upon these principles. Listen on as Uri & James discuss all of these topics and more, including:Waze built its maps using user GPS data, why did the first 1000 users download Waze? (00:11:22)The 4 Stages of Users: Innovators -> Early Adopters -> Early Majority -> Late Majority (00:13:14)What percentage of successes are problem-based vs innovation-based? (00:15:46)How do you distinguish between your users and your customers? (00:16:50)Did Waze ever consider charging subscriptions to the users? (00:18:37)What metrics do you look at to see if a business is on the right path? (00:39:25)Did Waze ever consider licensing navigation data? (00:47:39)Why is it more valuable to talk to customers who don't like you? (00:48:27)What are some techniques to cement a good first impression? (00:53:30)------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book Skip the Line is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltucher.com/podcast.------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe  to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsStitcheriHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on Social Media:YouTubeTwitterFacebook  ------------What do YOU think of the show? Head to JamesAltucherShow.com/listeners and fill out a short survey that will help us better tailor the podcast to our audience!Are you interested in getting direct answers from James about your question on a podcast? Go to JamesAltucherShow.com/AskAltucher and send in your questions to be answered on the air!------------Visit Notepd.com to read our idea lists & sign up to create your own!My new book, Skip the Line, is out! Make sure you get a copy wherever books are sold!Join the You Should Run for President 2.0 Facebook Group, where we discuss why you should run for President.I write about all my podcasts! Check out the full post and learn what I learned at jamesaltuchershow.com------------Thank you so much for listening! If you like this episode, please rate, review, and subscribe to "The James Altucher Show" wherever you get your podcasts: Apple PodcastsiHeart RadioSpotifyFollow me on social media:YouTubeTwitterFacebookLinkedIn See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

So Yuri Levine started ways, you've probably used ways.

0:11.0

It's like a mapping program on your car that tells you, oh, there's traffic jam over

0:15.4

here.

0:16.4

There's a speed trap over here.

0:17.6

Here's the best route.

0:18.6

It's basically a map application with user-contributed data about where there might be traffic

0:23.2

jams right now and so on.

0:25.8

This sold for over a billion dollars to Google and Yuri has gone on to start other billion

0:30.9

dollar companies that sold for billions and he's been invested in many, many more companies

0:36.1

that have been very successful.

0:37.9

And I have to say, what he wrote, this book is called Fall in Love with the Problem,

0:43.3

not the solution and it's a handbook for entrepreneurs.

0:46.4

This is the definitive guide to being an entrepreneur and what we're going to go over as many points

0:51.6

as possible in the podcast, how do you find the right idea?

0:55.2

How do you start your company?

0:57.0

How do you raise money?

0:58.2

How do you demo your company?

0:59.8

He gives story after story about finding the right product market fit.

1:03.4

How do you find the right business model?

1:05.0

How do you add users?

1:06.6

How do you get to a billion users?

1:07.8

How do you expand to other countries?

...

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