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Pete Lead
Pete Lead

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How to write a great startup survey

And what to do instead Don’t use surveys. Please. Your goal as a founder is to learn. Learning in the most efficient way possible means balancing learning deeply and moving quickly. Surveys achieve neither. It sounds like a small effort: create a survey, send it out. But it takes more time and effort…

Startup

8 min read

How to write a great startup survey
How to write a great startup survey
Startup

8 min read


Jun 22, 2022

Facebook won’t help you get your hacked account back

They have zero incentive to stop account hackers — On 18 May my partner’s Instagram account was hacked. It was a sneaky attack. They used a hacked account which was familiar to my partner, and asked for help getting an access code from Instagram. …

Instagram

4 min read

Facebook won’t help you get your hacked account back
Facebook won’t help you get your hacked account back
Instagram

4 min read


Feb 16, 2022

You have 10 seconds to pitch a startup via email

How VCs review an emailed pitch deck — When you think “startup”, you probably picture a charismatic CEO in a branded t-shirt standing in front of a big screen, pitching their story in five minutes or less. Pitch nights, demo days, showcases. Startup founders pitch a lot. And when it comes to finding the right investors (if a…

VC

6 min read

You have 10 seconds to pitch an investor via email
You have 10 seconds to pitch an investor via email
VC

6 min read


Mar 30, 2021

New research on Lean Startup: hypotheses good; MBAs bad

How we learn to learn has a big impact on success — New research on the Lean Startup methodology finds that a business school background (i.e. an MBA) can hinder a founder’s ability to adapt to new evidence in an early-stage lean startup context, if they don’t embrace the hypothesis-testing approach through customer discovery interviews. On the other hand, if they do…

Startup

6 min read

New research on Lean Startup: hypotheses good; MBAs bad
New research on Lean Startup: hypotheses good; MBAs bad
Startup

6 min read


Mar 28, 2021

Articulating how I think

Trying to explain my mental frameworks to others — Johnny Carson once told Steve Martin: “You will use everything you know.” In his book Born Standing Up, Steve Martin details how this came true throughout his career. One example is that he learned rope lasso tricks while working at Disneyland as a teenager, and performed them in ¡Three Amigos…

Management Consulting

4 min read

Articulating how I think
Articulating how I think
Management Consulting

4 min read


Feb 12, 2021

What I learned about business from Will Ferrell’s SNL audition

Watching a comedy giant before he was great is like seeing a startup’s first pitch — Two things happened to me today: I discovered Will Ferrell’s audition for SNL (“Saturday Night Live”), and I had first meetings with four early stage startups. …

Business

12 min read

What I learned about business from Will Ferrell’s SNL audition
What I learned about business from Will Ferrell’s SNL audition
Business

12 min read


Aug 13, 2020

Coronavirus and the Three Laws of Robotics

Is inaction better than action if either outcome will cause harm? — Way back in the 1940’s, science fiction writer Isaac Asimov started developing his Three Laws of Robotics through a series of short stories and novels. These Laws are hard-wired in the robots’ brains, and the stories explored situations in which these laws would apply in different ways, and sometimes in…

Covid-19

7 min read

Coronavirus and the Three Laws of Robotics
Coronavirus and the Three Laws of Robotics
Covid-19

7 min read


Jul 9, 2020

Reflections on Launching 12 Startups During COVID

And comparison with a pre-COVID cohort — We just launched 12 startups in ten weeks in a Masters elective subject at the University of Sydney Business School in Australia. As this semester was during a COVID isolation stage, how does it compare to pre-COVID performance and experience for the same class? …

Startup Lessons

6 min read

Launching 12 startups in 10 weeks during COVID
Launching 12 startups in 10 weeks during COVID
Startup Lessons

6 min read


May 31, 2020

Buying a house in NZ while living in Australia: Catch-22

Untangling knots in the IRD number application process — Niche content alert. This post is about my journey through bureaucracy to meet the requirements to buy a house in New Zealand. It contains humour, of sorts, but unless you’re an Australian citizen or resident and you want to get a New Zealand IRD number — or you design processes…

New Zealand

7 min read

Buying a house in NZ while living in Australia: Catch-22
Buying a house in NZ while living in Australia: Catch-22
New Zealand

7 min read


Apr 14, 2020

Goal achieved! I lost 7kg this year

While selling a house, moving, working two jobs, and the world collapsed — A few months ago I wrote about the Captain Mal-from-Firefly diet, which is a mindset I adopted recently to change my habits. My goal was to lose the 5kg (11lbs) I gained doing an MBA, with a goal weight of 73kg (161lbs) by my birthday earlier this month. I did…

Weight Loss

2 min read

Goal achieved! I lost 7kg this year
Goal achieved! I lost 7kg this year
Weight Loss

2 min read

Pete Lead

Pete Lead

667 Followers

I work with startups, teach entrepreneurship, and freelance in improv and leadership coaching.

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