LinkedIn: 9 biz-boosting secrets that turned a video game addict into a billionaire

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Hey rebel solopreneurs 🦸‍♂️🦸‍♀️

You think you need to figure everything out before taking action.

This wrong belief keeps you stuck in endless planning mode, researching and strategizing while real opportunities slip away.

But wait - what if the secret to billion-dollar success is actually starting before you have all the answers?

Reid Hoffman proved that taking action with incomplete information beats perfect planning every single time, turning uncertainty into LinkedIn's $26.2 billion exit to Microsoft.

Let's investigate his secret formula!

🍹 The humble beginnings...

Reid Hoffman was born in Palo Alto in 1967, raised by two attorney parents in Berkeley.

At age 9, he discovered Dungeons and Dragons and got completely hooked.

He played RuneQuest obsessively, made by nearby company Chaosium.

A friend introduced him to Chaosium's founders, who started employing him to edit game scenarios.

His dad surprisingly supported this unconventional path.

Until 7th grade, Reid was failing academically - he got an F in French class.

Get this - he spent entire French classes reading science fiction books in English.

For a full year, he answered every question with "Je ne sais pas" (I don't know).

His teacher actually asked him to stop taking French because he wouldn't stop reading.

Reid believed he was just a terrible student who couldn't do academics.

But here's the thing - at 13, something clicked and he realized he'd be responsible for his own life after high school.

He decided most interesting people went to college, so he better start taking school seriously.

Boom - he completely flipped his approach: study first, then Dungeons and Dragons.

He lobbied his parents to send him to private school for smaller classes.

Eventually convinced them to let him attend Putney School in Vermont for independence.

He returned to Stanford for their Structured Liberal Education program covering philosophy, history, and human civilization.

He wanted to become a professor and public intellectual, writing for Atlantic and New York Review of Books.

But here's where it gets interesting - after getting a Marshall Scholarship to Oxford for philosophy, he realized academic life wasn't for him.

He didn't want to spend his career writing books only 50 people would read.

Then he remembered Stanford's Software Entrepreneurship course and saw similarities between writing essays and creating software.

What if software could have the same public intellectual impact as books, but reach millions instead of dozens?

1. 🧠 Stop believing you're bad at something just because it doesn't come naturally

Reid spent years convinced he was terrible at academics because early grades were poor.

Can you imagine? He let one French teacher's feedback define his entire academic identity.

But when he shifted his mindset at 13, everything changed.

Here's the thing - he realized being bad at something initially doesn't mean you can't master it with focused effort.

But even with this mindset shift, Reid still wasn't sure what career path would actually fulfill him...

2. 🔬 Test your career assumptions before committing years to them

Instead of just assuming he wanted to be a professor, Reid decided to actually test it.

Smart move, right?

He got the Marshall Scholarship and went to Oxford to try academic life firsthand.

But wait - after a year, he definitively knew: "I do not want to be an Academic. No question."

He appreciated scholarship but realized it wasn't what he wanted to do with his life.

This saved him from spending decades in the wrong career.

Now he knew what he didn't want, but his dad wasn't going to let him figure it out forever...

3. 💼 Sometimes you need external pressure to stop overthinking and start doing

When Reid moved back home after Oxford, his dad gave him three weeks to research.

Then boom - his dad said: "No, no, no, go get a job."

Reid wanted to start a company but VCs told him to ship a product first.

Here's what's wild - external pressure from his dad forced him to stop endless planning and take action.

He called all his friends asking what interesting work he could do - early LinkedIn behavior, you know?

This led him to Apple, where he'd learn a crucial lesson about learning on the job...

4. 🚀 Volunteer for projects that teach you skills you'll need later

At Apple, Reid created a deliberate learning plan for starting his own company.

Picture this - he listed required skills: design, product management, shipping products, building teams.

Whenever Apple needed someone for projects teaching these skills, Reid volunteered.

Get this - he asked mentors to break down "product management" into specific learnable skills.

Even when skills didn't come naturally, he persisted with determination.

Once he learned product skills, he realized he needed business experience too...

5. 💡 Choose your role based on what you want to learn, not what feels comfortable

Reid studied what VCs fund: two founders, one tech person, one business person.

Here's the thing - he had to choose which role he wanted and picked business over tech.

This meant learning P&L, project management, and business development.

So what did he do? He left Apple for Fujitsu specifically to get this business experience.

At Fujitsu, he worked 80 hours a week on WorldsAway, knowing it was probably too early to succeed.

After years of preparation, it was finally time to test his entrepreneurial skills...

6. 🎯 Launch your first venture knowing it will probably fail - but launch anyway

In 1997, Reid launched SocialNet.com as an internet dating and relationship service.

He thought building a high-quality product was all he needed.

Wrong! He created the best matching algorithm to connect the right people.

But here's what he learned - building isn't enough, getting millions of people to discover it is the real challenge.

His strategy of partnering with magazines and newspapers completely failed.

This failure taught him lessons that would prove invaluable at his next opportunity...

7. 🤝 Join someone else's rocket ship to learn while yours is still being built

When Peter Thiel approached Reid about joining PayPal, Reid didn't hesitate.

Here's what he said: "It doesn't have to be my idea, it just has to be the landscape I wanted to play in."

At PayPal, he handled external relations, banking, and international - areas he knew nothing about.

But get this - he loved tackling new challenges and learning at lightning speed.

The PayPal experience gave him credibility, connections, and capital for his next venture.

When PayPal sold to eBay for $1.5 billion, Reid finally had the resources and experience to try again...

8. 📈 Start during downturns when everyone thinks you're crazy

After PayPal sold in 2002, Silicon Valley thought the consumer internet was over.

Everyone moved to enterprise software and clean tech - Reid completely disagreed.

Here's what's brilliant - he saw fewer competitors launching, which meant less noise to break through.

The capital from PayPal gave him a longer runway during the downturn.

Most people thought starting a consumer internet company was crazy - which Reid saw as a good sign.

But even with perfect timing, LinkedIn's launch was a disaster...

9. 😱 Launch even when you're embarrassed by your product

LinkedIn launched in May 2003 and Reid expected people to sign up in droves.

Nope! Instead, only 2,000 people signed up in the first eight weeks.

Some days, only 20 people joined - "That's death," Reid realized.

But here's the crazy part - this "embarrassing" launch taught them what users actually wanted.

They discovered people were most curious about who else they knew was already on LinkedIn.

This insight led to the breakthrough feature that saved LinkedIn...

💰 The epic win

LinkedIn grew from 20 daily signups to millions of users after adding address book integration.

By 2010: 90 million members and 1000 employees in 10 offices worldwide.

By 2016: 400+ million members in 200+ countries with 10+ million job listings.

Microsoft acquired LinkedIn for $26.2 billion - the largest acquisition in Microsoft's history.

🥂 Your turn to shine bright!

That's it, my fellow rebels!

Reid went from endless planning and research to building a $26.2 billion platform by taking action without having all the answers.

Here's what's wild - he discovered that starting with incomplete information teaches you what you actually need to know, while waiting for perfect clarity means never starting at all.

"I realized the only way I was going to do this was just start," says Reid.

"You've always got to anticipate that not only will the world change and the environment around you change, but that you will change as well," adds Reid.

Stop planning and start doing - your incomplete knowledge is exactly what you need to begin learning what actually matters, you know?

I'm pretty sure you're about to shake things up in ways nobody sees coming.

Keep rocking 🚀 🍩

Yours 'making success painless and fun' vijay peduru 🦸‍♂️