Tips from Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter and Square, about creating a successful startup: how to "need" and how to "not"

Jack Dorsey, the creator of Twitter and the Square mobile payment system, made a presentation at Y Combinator's Startup School. A successful businessman and innovator talked about how to find motivation to create his own team and found a company. "You will not be able to create anything without a common effort and goal," Dorsey says, you will just start hesitating and will not do anything that does not have a certain time frame."

Dorsey's report included the thoughts of famous teachers, and some interesting techniques that help organize yourself and start your own business.

In his report, Jack Dorsey mentioned a book by Robert Henry, an American realist artist and educator. Dorsey drew a parallel between Henry's thoughts from the book "The Spirit of Art" and his thoughts about a startup. The founder of Twitter believes that entrepreneurs should build what they want, and at the same time be sure to have a goal.

All real works of art look as if they were made with pleasure. Robert Henry

The speaker drew some thoughts from the book of the talented NLF coach Bill Walsh "The Score Takes Care of Itself", focusing on leadership. Dorsey believes that if an entrepreneur cannot be the best in his growing company, he will lose a lot.

Focus on yourself and don't let anyone take away what you have built.

Dorsey spent most of his half-hour report talking about how the thoughts and ideas of brilliant teachers can be applied to startups. One of the interesting practices that he advised future startups is creating a to—do list for self-organization.

Here are a few items from Jack Dorsey 's own list:

1. Stay in the present moment without focusing on the past or the future.
2. Being vulnerable: do not hide your mistakes and fears from people.
3. Drink only water with lemon juice and red wine.
4. Do six sets of 20 sit-ups and push-ups every day, run three miles, meditate on this list, stand straight, hold a heavy bag for 10 minutes.
5. Say hello to everyone.
6. Sleep at least 7 hours a day.

And here is the list of "not allowed":

1. Don't look away.
2. Don't be late.
3. Don't expect anything that you're not going to do.
4. Don't eat sugar.
5. Do not drink beer and strong drinks on weekdays.

Dorsey says that by creating such a list, people are already forming healthy behaviors, which, in turn, will help them live more correctly and better. And when all the "must" and "must not" come together in one list, a person cleanses his mind of unnecessary noise and can focus on things that are really important.

According to Dorsey, all employees of Twitter and Square wrote such lists of "must" and "must not" in order to reconsider and update their attitude to the organization.

And what happens when everything goes right, and you move from personal work to joint work? You create something that pleases people and makes them do it.

Both the worker and the artist should enjoy their work, otherwise no one will like it. Robert Henry