Mike Maples, Jr. - A Playbook for Startups - [Founder’s Field Guide, EP. 48]

My guest today is Mike Maples, co-founder and partner of Floodgate. As a child of the computer revolution, Mike was deconstructing calculators in grade school, writing video games in high school, and inevitably found himself building businesses in Silicon Valley after college. After his success as an operator, Mike eventually transitioned to become a full-time venture investor in the 2000s, and has since built a track record that includes Twitter, Twitch, Lyft, Octa, and a long list of successful tech businesses. I'm not sure I've recorded a conversation with more applicable ideas and advice for company builders. We discussed early insights and secrets, value hypothesis testing, customer development, growth, team orchestration, and a lot more. This is a masterclass from somebody who has seen it all. Also, do not miss his answer to the kindest thing question at the end of the conversation. I hope you enjoy this great talk with Mike Maples. For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.----- Founder's Field Guide is a property of Colossus, Inc. For more episodes of Founder's Field Guide, visit joincolossus.com/episodes. Stay up to date on all our podcasts by signing up to Colossus Weekly, our quick dive every Sunday highlighting the top business and investing concepts from our podcasts and the best of what we read that week. Sign up here.