Bolt's initial scooter launch in Paris was a disaster, with rampant theft and vandalism of consumer-grade scooters. The key insight was that the unit economics were impossible without controlling the hardware. By developing custom-built scooters that couldn't be easily resold for parts, they dramatically reduced theft and made the business model viable.

Conventional wisdom to 'stay focused' is flawed. Breakthrough growth often comes from making many small, exploratory bets. YipitData's success wasn't from perfecting one thing, but from the one small, tangential bet each year that drove 90% of the growth while others failed.

For founders in emerging markets like Africa, the most valuable asset from a community is not capital but access to good product judgment, taste, and peers. This cultivates the ability to create globally meaningful products where established tech ecosystems don't exist.

To avoid distracting from its core business, Bolt tests new ventures like scooters and food delivery using a standardized playbook. A small team of 5-10 people is given a modest budget and a six-month timeline to build an MVP and show traction. If successful, they get more funding; if not, the project is shut down.

Figma's market initially seemed too small to attract major VC interest or intense competition, giving them space to build a defensible product. Founders can gain a significant advantage by working in overlooked spaces, provided they have genuine passion to sustain them for a decade or more.

After a disastrous London launch was shut down in 72 hours for bypassing regulators, Bolt learned a critical lesson. Their 'move fast' approach from low-regulation markets didn't work everywhere. This failure forced them to create a dual strategy: optimizing for speed in some countries and for risk mitigation and compliance in others.

A powerful startup strategy is to screenshot a successful app and use AI to rapidly generate a clone tailored to a new market. This "business arbitrage" allows founders to quickly test proven models in new geographies or vertical niches with minimal upfront development.

When evaluating revolutionary ideas, traditional Total Addressable Market (TAM) analysis is useless. VCs should instead bet on founders with a "world-bending vision" capable of inducing a new market, not just capturing an existing one. Have the humility to admit you can't predict market size and instead back the visionary founder.

When COVID decimated ride-hailing, Bolt rejected mass layoffs common among competitors. They opted for a universal 20% salary cut, with leadership taking more. This preserved their team's talent and morale, allowing them to aggressively pivot to food delivery and capture significant market share from paralyzed rivals when the market recovered.