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 and get a second signed copy for free. Limited copies are available, so order ASAP: https://www.patternbreakers.com/lenny. Brought to you by: • Enterpret—Transform customer feedback into product growth: https://enterpret.com/lenny • Anvil—The fastest way to build software for documents: https://www.useanvil.com/lenny • Webflow—The web experience platform: https://webflow.com Find the transcript and references at: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com/p/how-to-find-a-great-startup-idea-mike-maples-jr Where to find Mike Maples, Jr.: • X: https://x.com/m2jr • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maples/ • Substack: https://greatness.substack.com/ • Website: https://www.floodgate.com/ Where to find Lenny: • Newsletter: https://www.lennysnewsletter.com • X: https://twitter.com/lennysan • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennyrachitsky/ In this episode, we cover: (00:00) Mike’s background (03:10) The inspiration behind Pattern Breakers (08:09) Uncovering startup insights (11:37) A quick summary of Pattern Breakers (13:52) Coming up with an idea (15:30) Inflections (17:03) Examples of inflections (28:02) Insights (36:49) The power of surprises (47:31) Founder-future fit (55:28) Advice for aspiring founders (56:33) Living in the future: valid opinions (58:32) Identifying lighthouse customers (01:00:45) The importance of desperation in customer needs (01:03:49) Creating movements and storytelling (01:24:14) The role of disagreeableness in startups (01:34:34) Applying these principles within a company (01:40:35) Lightning round Production and marketing by https://penname.co/. For inquiries about sponsoring the podcast, email podcast@lennyrachitsky.com. Lenny may be an investor in the companies discussed.