We need to sharpen the brain to make the most of the time we have and a simple
quote can change the year. Here are 400 unique quotes from successful
entrepreneurs that will focus your mind.
Also read: 25 companies show you their best SaaS pricing models as
examples
When was the last time you woke up and said “today I’m going to buy some
software/consulting/services/apps/etc?”.
Seriously, when was it?
No One Gives A Sh*t About Your Product.
They want to buy a specific RESULT your product gives them.
Spanx sells undergarments, but is in the RESULTS business of helping women
appear slimmer immediately, without having to lose weight.
BeachBody sells workout programs, but is in the RESULTS business of helping
you get in shape without having to leave your house.
— Mitchell Harper, Founder of
BigCommerce
I know most people are looking for our “one top tip” or the magical “hack”
that got us customers, there really isn’t any one thing. We grew email by
email, Skype by Skype, webinar by webinar, and looking back I can’t distill it
down to any one thing.
— Des Traynor, Co-founder Intercom,
link
Products tend to succeed thanks to a single core use case that really
mattered to users
— Othman Laraki, Co-founded Mixer Labs
link
Keep track of how many times you say ‘if’ when you explain how you’ll be
successful
— Othman Laraki, Co-founded Mixer Labs
link
I’ll assert that market is the most important factor in a startup’s success
or failure
— Marc Andreessen, Co-founded Netscape,
VC link
Each time I have built a team, personal traits — not professional skills —
have been what propelled the company forward
— David Cancel, Founded Compete
link
The single best decision we ever made was to make customer service
everyone’s job
— David Cancel, Founded Compete
People not caring enough about your product is your true competition, not
some other startup
— David Cancel, Founded Compete
link
Warning signs that your product sucks: “I’m really busy right now but I’ll
start using your app soon.”
— David Cancel, Founded Compete
The startup “valley of death” lies in between startup success and startup
failure and it’s the worst place to get stuck
— David Cancel, Founded Compete
The four most powerful words coming from a new hire are: “I’ll figure it
out.”
— David Cancel, Founded Compete
link
The second biggest cause of startup failure: the cost of acquiring
customers
— David Skok, Serial entrepreneur, VC
link
In the startup world, if your primary focus is on making money, you usually
won’t make money
— David Skok, Serial entrepreneur, VC
link
The most important factor to increasing growth is not the Viral Coefficient,
but the Viral Cycle Time
— David Skok, Serial entrepreneur, VC
link
Let’s drop the farce, ok? Even when you had to work eighty hours, you
didn’t, really
Keep the team small. All doers, no talkers. Absolutely no middle managers
There isn’t a shortage of developers and designers. There’s a surplus of
founders
No, people aren’t getting any smarter or harder-working. But the amount of
leverage is obscene
All sorts of businesses are being built by violating assumptions about the
privacy of data
The 5 main qualities of an ‘exceptional startup’. 1. Traction
You just have to throw away much of your guilt and self-doubt
— Erica Douglass, Serial Entrepreneur
link
You can’t “success” your way out of comparing yourself to others
— Erica Douglass, Serial Entrepreneur
link
Too many entrepreneurs go after tiny markets and then charge too little to
really make a difference
— Erica Douglass, Serial Entrepreneur
link
When you look at your competitors, remember that everything looks perfect at
a distance
— Bob Parsons, Founder, GoDaddy
link
Most people don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing. They imitate
others, go with the flow, follow paths without making their own
— Derek Sivers, Founder, CD Baby
You can’t please everyone, so proudly exclude people
— Derek Sivers, Founder, CD Baby
link
If you’re not saying “HELL YEAH!” about something, then say no
— Derek Sivers, Founder of CD Baby
link
Smart people don’t think others are stupid
— Derek Sivers, Founder of CD Baby
link
Shut up! Announcing your plans makes you less motivated to accomplish
them
— Derek Sivers, Founder of CD Baby
link
I’m (almost) always encouraged when I hear people complain about the
service, because it means that people care
Avoid letting raising money distract you from what really matters —
building a great product and delighting your users
— Ian Hogarth, Co-founder, SongKick
link
Forget startup orthodoxy. Just do it! Practical action is the antidote to
anxieties about your skills deficiencies
— Michelle You, Co-founder,
SongKick
link
Our overnight success took 1000 days
— Brian Chesky, Co-founder, Airbnb
One reason you need resilience in a startup is that you are going to get
rejected a lot
— Jessica Livingstone,
FoundersAtWork
link
This is one of the biggest things the rest of the world doesn’t understand
about hackers. They simply enjoy building things
— Jessica Livingstone,
FoundersAtWork
link
The only products we make at Evernote, we make for ourselves. We are the
customers.
— Phil Libin, Founder & CEO, Evernote
link
Everyone else is your boss — all of your employees, customers, partners,
users, media are your boss.
— Phil Libin, Founder & CEO, Evernote
link
Observe the world around you — everything you do, and especially everything
you hate to do
— Aaron Patzer, Founder, Mint.com
link
I’m not that good at changing the world through art, and should stick to
what I know: science.
— Max Levchin, Co-founded Paypal
link
The path forward for me is to seek that balance of hard, valuable and fun
in every project I start
— Max Levchin, Co-founded Paypal
link
If you aren’t willing to take a shot by going full time it tells investors
you aren’t confident enough in the idea or in yourself
— Mark Suster, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Entrepreneurs don’t “noodle,” they “do.” This is what separates
entrepreneurs from big executives, consultants and investors
— Mark Suster, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Your founding team should never have more than 2 people total (including
you)
— Mark Suster, Entrepreneur, VC
link
The degree to which a company can utilize habit-forming technologies will
increasingly decide which products succeed
People ask me who inspires me. I have been inspired in my work by stuff
that people make
— Caterina Fake, Co-founded Flickr,
Hunch
link
The best time to start a company is always two years ago, and the next best
time is now
— Caterina Fake, Co-founded Flickr,
Hunch
link
Ask yourself the question: what do you wish someone would make for you?
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
Determination. This has turned out to be the most important quality in
startup founders
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
You need persistence because everything takes longer than you expect
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
To make a startup recession-proof is to do exactly what you should do
anyway: run it as cheaply as possible
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
You can only avoid competition by avoiding good ideas.
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
Founders are more motivated by the fear of looking bad than by the hope of
getting millions of dollars
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
I noticed a pattern in the least successful startups we’d funded: they all
seemed hard to talk to
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
The people who started using it used it the way we had hoped. I think those
few people kept Pinterest going
— Ben Silbermann, Co-founder, Pinterest
link
The few people who used it, myself among them, really loved it. Instead of
changing it, we’d find more people like me
— Ben Silbermann, Co-founder, Pinterest
link
A modern productive worker is someone who does a great job in figuring out
what to do next
— Seth Godin, Entrepreneur,
Author
link
Persistence isn’t using the same tactics over and over. Persistence is
having the same goal over and over.
— Seth Godin, Entrepreneur,
Author
link
You can’t have good ideas unless you’re willing to generate a lot of bad
ones
— Seth Godin, Entrepreneur,
Author
link
The more aggressively you redefine the problem, the more likely it is
you’re going to solve it
— Seth Godin, Entrepreneur,
Author link
This is not checkers; this is mutherfuckin’ chess — Technology businesses
tend to be extremely complex
— Ben Horowitz, Entrepreneur, VC
link
CEOs often either: 1. take things too personally 2. Do not take things
personally enough
— Ben Horowitz, Entrepreneur, VC
link
It generally takes years for a founder to develop the CEO skill set
— Ben Horowitz, Entrepreneur, VC
link
My single biggest personal improvement as CEO occurred on the day when I
stopped being too positive
— Ben Horowitz, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Early in a startup, product decisions should be hunch driven. Later on,
product decisions should be data driven
— Fred Wilson, VC, Union Square
link
Ideas that most people derided as ridiculous have produced the best
outcomes. Don’t do the obvious thing
— Fred Wilson, VC, Union Square
link
I’d rather have conviction and be wrong than have doubts and be right
— Fred Wilson, VC, Union Square
link
“Fail!” is the cry of someone who doesn’t create, doesn’t ship, doesn’t
launch, who doesn’t make things
Sometimes if you do something very difficult, and you do it really well,
the end result is that your achievement becomes completely invisible
When you operate believing you’re the best person, or the only person to do
specific task, you undermine the confidence of your employees
— Mike Michalowicz, CEO,
Provendus link
Under Promise, Over Deliver
— Mike Michalowicz, CEO,
Provendus
link
Startups are not about working on a great idea — they are the relentless
pursuit of doing stuff for customers
4 Ways Startups Fail. 1. Run out of money
If your startup needs multiple miracles to succeed, you need to go back to
the drawing board
Avoiding perpetual “try not to die mode” is the only way to rediscover the
ambition and drive to shoot really big
Many startups fail because the founding team thinks ‘too big’ from day
one
A key job of the founder is to identify the single binding constraint for
the startup at any given time
— Albert Wenger, VC, Entrepreneur
link
Offense is the best defense for startups… As a startup you don’t really
have anything to defend yet
— Albert Wenger, VC, Entrepreneur
link
As soon as your new startup has some actual end users a fear of changes
sets in
— Albert Wenger, VC, Entrepreneur
link
First-time entrepreneurs often fail to realize that when you build
something new, no one will care
— Chris Dixon, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
There’s great stuff between failure and Facebook
— Chris Dixon, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
The next big thing always starts out being dismissed as a ‘toy’
— Chris Dixon, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
Startups are primarly competing against indifference, lack of awareness,
and lack of understanding — not other startups
— Chris Dixon, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
Everyone should have vesting. If you have a lawyer who tells you otherwise,
get a new lawyer
— Chris Dixon, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
You must confirm the marketing ahead of time: blogs, twitterers, ad buys,
etc… Don’t leave it up to chance.
— Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo, AppSumo
link
Instant Value. This is easily the most important thing.
— Noah Kagan, Chief Sumo, AppSumo
link
You should always try to have at least six people interview each candidate
that gets hired
A new business is like a shortwave radio. You have to fiddle patiently with
all the dials until you get the reception you want
Single worst strategic mistake that any software company can make: Re-write
from scratch
Customers Don’t Know What They Want. Stop Expecting Customers to Know What
They Want.
Surprisingly few companies take the basic step of attempting to learn about
their customers
In an early-stage startup especially, revenue is not an important goal in
and of itself
Vanity metrics: numbers that give the illusion of progress but often mask
the true relationship between cause and effect
The difference between companies that fail and those that succeed is “the
ability to defer gratification.”
— Marc Andreessen, VC, Co-founded
Netscape
link
Entrepreneurs measure progress by “accomplishing their goals”
— Steve Blank, Mr.Customer Development
link
The founders that make a dent in the universe are dissidents. They are not
afraid to tell their bosses they are idiots
— Steve Blank, Mr.Customer Development
link
A Pivot should not be an excuse for a lack of a coherent strategy or a lack
of impulse control
— Steve Blank, Mr.Customer Development
link
Does anybody really care, or are they giving you polite nods and little
more
— Steve Blank, Mr.Customer Development
link
For startups, the product is the entire startup, not just the product
that’s sold
— David Cummings, CEO of Pardot
link
If you build it and users come and say “this is great!” almost from day
one, then the idea is good
— James Altucher, Investor,
Entrepreneur
link
The most common startup mistake is being afraid to make mistakes
— James Altucher, Investor,
Entrepreneur
link
To sell your company, start getting in front of your acquirers a year in
advance
— James Altucher, Investor,
Entrepreneur
link
Don’t buy into the 20 hours a day entrepreneur myth. You need to sleep 8
hours a day to have a focused mind
— James Altucher, Investor,
Entrepreneur
link
The MOST IMPORTANT RULE: Have a customer before you start your business
— James Altucher, Investor,
Entrepreneur
link
One trend I noticed between successful startups and failures, is that the
failures made a lot of marketing mistakes
— Neil Patel , Co-founder Kissmetrics
link
Show passion, not perfection
— Neil Patel , Co-founder Kissmetrics
link
Not one of the successful entrepreneurs I know started as an expert
— Jason Cohen, Founder, WP, Smart
Bear link
Features, messaging, the path to customers, your competitive edge, your
pricing model — all this gets figured out as you go
— Jason Cohen, Founder, WP, Smart
Bear link
The fallacy is that you’re searching for a theory in a pile of data, rather
than forming a theory and running an experiment
— Jason Cohen, Founder, WP, Smart
Bear link
It’s not your purpose to “beat” another company. It’s your purpose to
define yourself on your own terms
— Jason Cohen, Founder, WP, Smart
Bear link
Impostor syndrome: 40% of successful people consider themselves frauds
— Jason Cohen, Founder, WP, Smart
Bear link
Do you want to be different from 99% of other companies? Be honest. Be
genuine
— Jason Cohen, Founder, WP, Smart
Bear
link
Even a $500 million market is too small for a mega-corporation to attack
— Jason Cohen, Founder, WP, Smart
Bear link
If you don’t have passion for your code/product/startup everyone will
know
— Rob Walling, Serial solo
entrepreneur
link
Your market is most likely not the people who read Digg. Nor the people who
read TechCrunch
— Rob Walling, Serial solo
entrepreneur
link
How do we make our customers smile? Every single decision we make comes
down to that
— Jason Goldberg, Co-founder, Fab
link
Mature, but don’t grow up
— Jason Goldberg, Co-founder, Fab
link
People will do great things for you because they want to, not because they
have to
— Jason Goldberg, Co-founder, Fab
link
The CEO of a startup must, must, must be the product manager. He/she must
own the functional user experience
— Jason Goldberg, Co-founder, Fab
link
Be technical. You don’t have to write code but you do have to understand
how it is built and how it works
— Jason Goldberg, Co-founder, Fab
link
Customers cannot tell you what they need
— Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder, Alltop
link
Changing your mind is a sign of intelligence
— Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder, Alltop
link
Experts — journalists, analysts, consultants, bankers, and gurus can’t “do”
so they “advise.”
— Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder, Alltop
link
Top Ten Lies of Entrepreneurs: 1. “Our projections are conservative.”
— Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder, Alltop
link
Innovation — the internet and digital kind — are rarely the result of the
work of a task force
— Rex Hammock, CEO, Hammock
link
“kick your own ass” before someone else does
— Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur
link
What a bunch of BS. ”Follow Your Passion” is easily the worst advice you
could ever give or get
— Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur
link
Every no gets me closer to a yes
— Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur
link
If someone else makes their product easier to buy or use than you, that is
when you lose customers the fastest
— Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur
link
There are no shortcuts. NONE
— Mark Cuban, Entrepreneur
link
In a recession, the use of Facebook, Linked In, eCommerce, blogs will
increase
— George Colony, CEO, Forrester Research
link
Until you have 10,000 folks a day coming directly to your domain name,
you’re not a brand
— Jason Calacanis, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
If this was Hollywood, the folks who pay to present to investors are ugly,
unpopular and lack talent
— Jason Calacanis, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
Go to each of your vendors every 6–9 months and ask for 10–30% off
— Jason Calacanis, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
You don’t need a PR firm, you don’t need an in-house PR person and you
don’t need to spend ANY money to get amazing PR
— Jason Calacanis, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
Buy second monitors for everyone, they will save at least 30 minutes a day,
which is 100 hours a year
— Jason Calacanis, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
if you’re not hearing no a lot (from people or the market) you’re not
trying hard enough
— Gabriel Weinberg, Founder DuckDuckGo
link
Mentors are there to call you on all your bullshit
— Gabriel Weinberg, Founder DuckDuckGo
link
An ambitious startup idea with just a little bit of traction attracts all
the right body parts
— Gabriel Weinberg, Founder DuckDuckGo
link
5 startup Traction mistakes: 1. They don’t pursue traction in parallel with
product development
— Gabriel Weinberg, Founder DuckDuckGo
link
We’re not competing for attention but for memory
— Gabriel Weinberg, Founder DuckDuckGo
link
At Balsamiq, we don’t have deadlines. Ever.
song: “Work like you don’t need the money, love like you’ve never been
hurt, dance like nobody’s watching”
The middle stage between startup and established business is the hardest in
an organization’s growth
— Alex Payne, Programmer, Writer, Investor
link
The reason a person is critical of a thing is because he is passionate
about that thing
— Alex Payne, Programmer, Writer, Investor
link
We chase patterns that aren’t there and miss eager markets right in front
of us
— Alex Payne, Programmer, Writer, Investor
link
The team should own the vision and direction for the part of your product
that it works on
— Adam Wiggins, Co-founder, Heroku
link
Listen to your customers, but don’t let them tell you what to do
— Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub Co-founder
link
When I’m old and dying, I plan to look back on my life and say “wow, that
was an adventure,” not “wow, I sure felt safe.”
— Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub Co-founder
link
Truly good decisions are forged from the furnace of argument
— Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub Co-founder
link
99.5 percent of the people that walk around and say they are a social media
expert or guru are clowns
— Gary Vaynerchuck, Entrepreneur
link
People are the people that can help you. Be completely transparent
— Gary Vaynerchuck, Entrepreneur
link
I encourage you to reconsider the word “user” and what you call the people
who love what you’ve created
— Jack Dorsey, Twitter creator
link
Our single greatest innovation however, was recognizing that they (people)
could do a better job innovating than us
— Jack Dorsey, Twitter creator
link
I started eBay as an experiment, as a side hobby basically, while I had my
day job,
— Pierre Omidyar, Founder, Ebay
link
Once people are connected… they’re discovering that they can contribute to
a community, which is an empowering experience
— Pierre Omidyar, Founder, Ebay
link
Technology always changes, but people always stay the same
— Andrew Chen, Entrepreneur, Former
VC
link
When’s the last time you spoke to your target customer? If it’s been more
than a month, then shame on you!
— Andrew Chen, Entrepreneur, Former
VC
link
You should give people valves to tell you “I hate this!” so that you can
learn more faster
— Andrew Chen, Entrepreneur, Former
VC
link
You need a central design vision — there’s no way around that
— Andrew Chen, Entrepreneur, Former
VC
link
When you have a small dataset and lots of variables, you can’t predict
shit
— Andrew Chen, Entrepreneur, Former
VC
link
Business models are a commodity now, so “how will they make money?” isn’t
an interesting question
— Andrew Chen, Entrepreneur, Former
VC
link
Users aren’t customers, and brand doesn’t equal sales
Suggestions on Interacting with VCs: 1. Be human; be yourself
— John Lilly, Former Mozilla CEO, VC
link
Data: It’s what turns designers from artists into the most important
decision makers in a company
— John Lilly, Former Mozilla CEO, VC
link
That’s the biggest message from Jobs’ life. Don’t try to be like Steve.
Don’t try to be like anyone
— John Lilly, Former Mozilla CEO, VC
link
Being a good leader: People I’ve worked with know that I really want to
help them win
— John Lilly, Former Mozilla CEO, VC
link
Our most successful companies are led by entrepreneurs who have a unique
talent — they are heat seeking missiles
— Josh Kopelman, Entrepreneur, VC
link
There is a huge burden to getting a consumer to pay anything — and
entrepreneurs underestimate the level of effort
— Josh Kopelman, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Business plan: The moment an entrepreneur hits “save” or “print” the plan
is out of date
— Josh Kopelman, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Deliver different messages to different users based on where they are in
their lifecycle
— Josh Kopelman, Entrepreneur, VC
link
A company’s risk-tolerance level is set by a leader’s reaction to
failure
— Josh Kopelman, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Your friends and family won’t understand what you do
— Jason Baptiste, CEO, Onswipe
link
Your long term vision and the path that gets you there cannot be stolen
— Jason Baptiste, CEO, Onswipe
link
If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy
— Jason Baptiste, CEO, Onswipe
link
DON’T BREAK WHEN BROKEN
— Jason Baptiste, CEO, Onswipe
link
We did a lot of things that went against the DNA of our product
— Kevin Rose, Founder of Digg
link
A lot of what we then considered “working hard” was actually “freaking
out”
— Caterina Fake, Co-founded Flickr
& Hunch
link
Address bad news, develop methods to accelerate your personal recovery
time, and then quickly take steps to right the ship
— Jordan Cooper, Entrepreneur,
Investor
link
In long term vision, metrics and heuristics cross the chasm from logical to
spiritual
— Jordan Cooper, Entrepreneur,
Investor link
Hire and promote first on the basis of integrity, second, motivation…
— Jay Meattle, Doer, Shareaholic
link
Raising “too much” capital for an idea is poison
— Jay Meattle, Doer, Shareaholic
link
When you are working on something that has to ship in two weeks, you
realize how much stuff is trying to get your attention that isn’t a
priority
Have every employee do customer support for 2 weeks
When you accept the complete and total unimportance of suffering, you can
actually enjoy The Struggle
People who get stuff done strive for “good enough.”
— Ben Casnocha, Entrepreneur, Author
link
How to get useful feedback on your projects: Avoid Like/Dislike
— Ben Casnocha, Entrepreneur, Author
link
Most eureka moments happen iteratively; that is, one small creative burst
leads to another which leads to another
— Ben Casnocha, Entrepreneur, Author
link
Probability of a deal ever closing declines by 10% each day it doesn’t
close
— Mike Cassidy, Serial
Entrepreneur link
Speed in hiring: Have an offer letter ready before interviewee arrives
— Mike Cassidy, Serial
Entrepreneur
link
“What did you do to build such a strong community on reddit?” We gave a
damn
— Alexis Ohanian, Reddit
link
You don’t find a technical cofounder, you earn one
— Jason Freedman, 42Floors
link
Too many MBAs think that their education in business can be applied
directly to startups
— Jason Freedman, 42Floors
link
Figure out exactly what you need and just ask for it. Don’t play games,
don’t posture, don’t hint
— Jason Freedman, 42Floors
link
Be yourself. Abnormal people create abnormal returns
— Jason Freedman, 42Floors
link
We don’t ever engage in some interview question process that has nothing to
do with what it’s really like to work with us
— Jason Freedman, 42Floors
link
Good Design = Elicits the Desired “Feeling/Motivation”
— Tony Wright, Entrepreneur, Designer
link
Can you tell a story about the product that would make a blogger say, “Holy
crap”
— Tony Wright, Entrepreneur, Designer
link
Fabulous storytelling solves 75% of your PR problems
— Tony Wright, Entrepreneur, Designer
link
The thing that can pull a team through these rough spots is belief in
SOMETHING
— Tony Wright, Entrepreneur, Designer
link
It doesn’t matter a damn bit what you’re saying, it matters what’s being
heard
— Tony Wright, Entrepreneur, Designer
link
Too few startups these days are genuinely solving super painful problems
— Ben Yoskovitz, Founded Standout Jobs
link
A product manager is a CEO without all the “other crap” you have to deal
with in running a business
— Ben Yoskovitz, Founded Standout Jobs
link
Product Managers are “NO” people, not “YES” people
— Ben Yoskovitz, Founded Standout Jobs
link
The Hustler learns the rules quickly — breaks those he needs to — and
dances around those he shouldn’t
— Ben Yoskovitz, Founded Standout Jobs
link
You learn more than you ever could, you can build an incredible network,
and you’ll have radically new experiences
— Ben Yoskovitz, Founded Standout Jobs
link
Technology seems simple if the design is great
Don’t pay crazy amounts of money for a domain name. Make your name mean
something with good branding and marketing
Never start a business focused on solving a big company’s problem. They
don’t know they have a problem
In big companies: Markets that don’t exist can’t be analyzed or
justified
How can you get noticed? Don’t expect to tell the whole story, just enough
to get them curious and wanting to know more
You’re not innovating if: You are always worrying about what other
companies are doing
— Quintin Adamis, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Cliche as it may sound, Knowledge is Power. It allows you to price your
products how you like…
— Quintin Adamis, Entrepreneur, VC
link
Customers are giving us hints. Repeated hints are patterns. Repeating
patterns are preferences
— Robert Stephens, Founder, Geek Squad
link
The publishing industry has been evolving the design of images and text for
centuries. Tablet and touch allows it to come together
— Robert Stephens, Founder, Geek Squad
link
Money is not the motivator of employees. Development, knowledge and passion
is
— Manish Soni, Some random optician
A good idea is worthless without impeccable execution and a commitment to
iterate
— Zach Klein, Co-founded Vimeo
link
The first question a user has of your site: “Why should I care about
this?”
It may not be in their job descriptions, but everyone in a startup should
be selling
— Martin Zwilling, Startup
Professionals
link
First take the time to understand what drives you and why
— David Lerner, Entrepreneur,
Investor
link
There was something about the idea that I might have died in a grey train
full of grey commuters, having not truly lived, that I could not stand
— Daniel Tenner, Co-founder, Woobius
link
Don’t worry about age. Great entrepreneurs can get started at any age
— Daniel Tenner, Co-founder, Woobius
link
We all have beliefs that are holding us back. Sometimes we’re aware of
them, sometimes not
— Daniel Tenner, Co-founder, Woobius
link
Unless you have something practical that you need to do, reading about
startups, business, and so on, is a waste of time
— Daniel Tenner, Co-founder, Woobius
link
Networking to find a cofounder is like going to a party to find a wife
— Daniel Tenner, Co-founder, Woobius
link
I’ve personally made the mistake of trying to jump to “big” too soon many
times before
— Joel Gascoigne, Founder, Buffer
link
Disengaging is probably one of the most challenging aspects of running a
startup
— Joel Gascoigne, Founder, Buffer
link
Trust that you will learn everything you need to know
— Joel Gascoigne, Founder, Buffer
link
Embrace feeling uncomfortable
— Joel Gascoigne, Founder, Buffer
link
The only way to be able to work full-time on a startup was to build a
product which generated revenue early
— Joel Gascoigne, Founder, Buffer
link
How to start your startup in 4 steps. 1. Have an idea. 2. Cut it down
— Joel Gascoigne, Founder, Buffer
link
The coffeeshop fallacy is a mismatch between the work one imagines to be
involved in a pursuit and the actual day-to-day labour
— Rob Fitzpatrick, Founder, Dex.io
link
Code is to tech startups what staff is to real-world service businesses. A
big fixed cost that you want to delay
— Rob Fitzpatrick, Founder, Dex.io
link
The riskiest part of the company is going to be what you, personally, as an
individual, are worst at
— Rob Fitzpatrick, Founder, Dex.io
link
Until you’ve passed a thousand signups, the CEO should be personally
emailing every new user
— Rob Fitzpatrick, Founder, Dex.io
link
Important doesn’t mean hard and striving isn’t progress
— Rob Fitzpatrick, Founder, Dex.io
link
The top cause of startup death is trying to grow before the foundation is
solid
— Rob Fitzpatrick, Founder, Dex.io
link
If you are constantly looking at why something will fail you are going to
go out of business pretty quickly
— David Alison, Entrepreneur, Blogger
link
Nothing gets VCs to move faster than traction
— Mark MacLeod, Advisor, Seed
investor
link
You cannot (usually) raise $ for a services business. Why? Hard to scale
without adding lots of bodies
— Mark MacLeod, Advisor and seed
investor
link
Questions co-founders need to ask each other before starting: “Can you fire
me? Can I fire you?”
— Charlie O’Donnell, VC, Brooklyn Bridge
link
If you reduce a big opportunity into a simple solution and be amazing at
it, you’ll do quite well
— Charlie O’Donnell, VC, Brooklyn Bridge
link
The problem with startup advice: We remember ourselves as being smarter
than we really are
— Charlie O’Donnell, VC, Brooklyn Bridge
link
Need a Technical Co-founder? Hire a Product Design Lead First
— Charlie O’Donnell, VC, Brooklyn Bridge
link
Startups are the natural evolutionary answer to this new environment
— Fred Destin, VC at Atlas
link
The classic mistake is to confuse a few early adopters with a market
— Fred Destin, VC at Atlas
link
If you nail a large category in a local market, you can certainly build a
company worth $300M or more
— Fred Destin, VC at Atlas
link
If you don’t have something that turns your customers into fans, then
you’re sunk
— Hiten Shah, Co-founder of Kissmetrics
link
If you miss the chance to make the best of every moment, what kind of
future will you create?
— Hiten Shah, Co-founder of Kissmetrics
link
If you’re an entrepreneur, rules aren’t your friend
— Hiten Shah, Co-founder of Kissmetrics
link
Don’t take this shit for granted! If someone helps you out — be really
appreciative of it
— Howard Kingston, Future Ad Labs
link
Nobody owes you anything and your college degree means nothing
— Howard Kingston, Future Ad Labs
link
Just take action — good things that you can never foresee will come from
it
— Howard Kingston, Future Ad Labs
link
Often, people’s “needs” are much more flexible than they think
— Marco Arment, Founder, Instapaper
link
Starting makes things real. Starting builds momentum. Starting gets you
excited. Starting eliminates all your excuses
— Bill D’Alessandroh, Partner, Skyway
link
The market does not care how long you worked on something
— Carson McComas, Co-founder, DownDetect
link
Success almost never comes from a mind-blowing idea, so sitting around
trying to find one is a waste of time
— Ramit Sethi, Co-founded PBwiki
link
“We don’t know anything until we launch” is completely false
— Joshua Porter, Co-founded Performable
link
Interface Design is Copywriting. Designing an interface is largely an
exercise in choosing the right words
— Joshua Porter, Co-founded Performable
link
When designs fail to provide an appropriate next step for users it stops
them in their tracks
— Joshua Porter, Co-founded Performable
link
Humans are hard-wired for attention
— Joshua Porter, Co-founded Performable
link
Your job as designer is to pull your clients, despite their protests,
kicking and screaming into the future
— Joshua Porter, Co-founded Performable
link
Don’t worry about stating the obvious…the obvious almost never is
— Joshua Porter, Co-founded Performable
link
A lack of commitment to one thing is just as productive as doing nothing at
all
— Andrew Dumont, BD SEOmoz
link
I came into the interview ready to react. I had an answer for everything,
but no real story that I was going to tell
— Andrew Peek, Founder, Rocketr
link
The most destructive thing smart people do is spend their lives waiting
— Dustin Curtis, Creator, Svbtle
link
Optimism, pessimism, fuck that; we’re going to make it happen
Simplicity isn’t enough — clarity is where it’s at
— Dan Martell, Founder of Clarity
link
For the things in my life that actually mattered, I’ve never needed any
to-do list to tell me to do them
— Jeff Atwood, Co-founder,
StackOverflow link
The moment you get paid for your product, is the moment you emerge from the
warm, caring Silicon Valley cocoon into the real world
— Ilya Lichtenstein, Co-founder, Mixrank
link
Talking constantly to other entrepreneurs may cause “collaborative
fixation”. Everyone will end up thinking of the same stuff
— Noah Smith, Half-Elven Finance Prof
link
(on A/B testing): It’s incredibly easy to interpret data in a way that
suits your needs and justifies your conclusions
— josh brewer, Principal Designer at
Twitter link
Startups are coached to death when it comes to their demo day pitch. The
pitch has become so formulaic, it’s almost laughable
— Kate Hough, Co-founder, Huedio
link
(VC) If they don’t want to lie, they just don’t respond
— Josh Breinlinger, VC,
Entrepreneur
link
Just about every startup is for sale
— Dan shapiro, Entrepreneur
link
Why I sold my startup: “When I start my next company, I can swing for the
fences”
— Dan shapiro, Entrepreneur
link
If two people work on a task, it takes twice as long
— Dan shapiro, Entrepreneur
link
Chopping features is hard but a simple first step is just “Who’ll use this,
and how often?”
— Des Traynor, COO, Intercom
link
You can’t judge the market for a five star hotel by building a seedy
motel
— Des Traynor, COO, Intercom
link
If you join a startup early, you’re a shoe-in for executive positions.
Nope
— Michael O.Church, Entrepreneur
link
When you manage people like children, that’s what they become
— Michael O.Church, Entrepreneur
link
No! Try not. Do, or do not. There is no try
— Yoda, Jedi inc
On Failure: It’s about understanding, and accepting our limitations
— Micah Baldwin, Founder, Graphicly
link
Things don’t have to be in balance to be in balance. You can work 16 hours
a day and be in balance
— Micah Baldwin, Founder, Graphicly
link
You should recruit people that give you an unfair advantage. You should try
to win the game before it starts
— Chris Dixon, Founder, Investor
link
Divine inspiration fallacy: You think that the product spec comes from the
mouth of God directly to your mind
— Justin Kan, Founder, Justin.tv
link
When you look for reasons not to do something, you will always find them
— Justin Kan, Founder, Justin.tv
link
Empowerment doesn’t mean letting everyone do whatever the fuck they want
— Justin Kan, Founder, Justin.tv
link
My experience with the press has taught me to be careful, be focused and be
strategic
— Rand Fiskin, CEO & Founder,
SEOmoz
link
Those who think very highly of themselves tend to make for poor employees,
partners, service providers…
— Rand Fiskin, CEO & Founder,
SEOmoz
link
Take 1,000 “brilliant jerk” founders and I’d bet that less than 2 will have
enough brilliance to overcome the jerkiness
— Rand Fiskiny, CEO & Founder,
SEOmoz
link
I’m going to tell you a dirty little secret — investors think valuations
are bullshit too
On being acquired: “Selling out isn’t a dirty choice”
— Matt Gemmell, UX Designer, Writer
link
I believe that the top creative people are at their peak when they see
something for the first time
— Paul English, CTO &
Co-founder, Kayak
link
Website visitors don’t seem to care how long the trial period is
— Duane Jackson, Founder, KashFlow
link
Standout by putting your company’s value proposition (not logo) on a
t-shirt
— Alex Debelov, Co-Founder, Virool
Realize the daily highs and lows are what actually make your life
meaningful
— Ryan Carson, Founder, Treehouse
link
3 mistakes I made as a young entrepreneur. 1. Treating employees like
friends
— Ryan Carson, Founder, Treehouse
link
Define the simplest “productised” derivation of the Grand Vision that
generates value
— Jason Winder, Co-founder,
MakeLeaps
link
Stop being an emotionally distant founder. You made a commitment to this
startup
— Wesley Tansey, Co-founder, Curvio
Startups are not engineered. They’re hacked, scrapped for parts, and
reassembled endlessly until something sticks
— Wesley Tansey, Co-founder, Curvio
link
What matters is “Return on Luck” or how you take advantage of good luck and
avoid choking
— Jason Shen, Co-founder, Ridejoy
link
Don’t ask customers what they’ll pay. Tell them
— Ash Maurya, Founder Spark59
link
The right response to an unacceptable offer is a counter-offer
— Jacques Mattheij, Coder,
Entrepreneur link
The single most important aspect of Silicon Valley is that it’s where many
great people choose to live
— Patrick Collison, Stripe, Co-founder
link
Opportunity is all around us, but we have beliefs and habits that block
it
— Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail
link
Pick three key features, get those things very, very right, and then forget
about everything else
— Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail
link
Prediction made in 2000 for 2010: Google will be a big success, possibly as
big as Yahoo
— Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail
link
Instead of asking, “What’s the most likely outcome?”, I like to ask “What’s
the worst that could happen?” and “Could it be awesome?”
— Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail
link
If you’re starting something new, expect a long journey. That’s no excuse
to move slow though
— Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail
link
Lose your technical and design snobbery. Whatever works, works
— Paul Buchheit, Creator of Gmail
link
Surely if you’re building software, it is the ultimate in swapping between
analytic and empathetic
On leadership: If you want others to follow, learn to be alone with your
thoughts
— William Deresiewicz, Writer, Literary Critic
link
Motivating the tech co-founder: Anytime my cofounder needed a push — I’d
bring in loads more signups
— FindTheTechGuy, Blog
link
Pretty much everything you’re working on is critical to the product, which
isn’t true at large companies
The idea is typically worth anywhere between 10%-30% of a bump in equity
— Manu Kumar, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
The best work, IMHO, gets done when the core tech team is within shouting
distance of each other
— Manu Kumar, Entrepreneur, Investor
link
A lifestyle business’s job is to provide a great quality of life to its
owners
— Corbett Barr, Founder, Think
Traffic link
Overly networked individuals suffer from a lack of honest feedback
— Chris Savage, Co-founder & CEO,
Wistia link
Products best path: The fastest way your product solves your own problem
— Chris Savage, Co-founder & CEO,
Wistia
link
Frequency of execution is perhaps more important than the duration of
execution
— Jocelyn K. Glei, Editor-in-Chief of 99u
link
A small success for your startup is probably 80% of the way to a huge
success
When you have a well-defined core, YOU will be 90% of the feedback that you
need
(on some entrepreneurs): They’re chasing results. Chasing trends.
Following. They have no core.
I want to ride with people that will find a way over the concrete wall, not
“pivot”
Force yourself to innovate through voluntary restriction
— Andy Swang, Serial Entrepreneur
link
When a VC tells you what’s good for you, check your wallet, then count your
fingers
— Jamie Zawinski, Co-founder, Netscape
link
I prefer great vision and bad execution to bad vision and great
execution
— Vinod Khosla, VC, Co-founded Sun
link
Apparently $50 million is the new $100 million and I never got the memo
“Letting go” is uncomfortable enough for normal folks; for entrepreneurs it
can be terrifying
Instead of a one-size-fits-all product, you often end up with a
one-size-fits-none product
— Sahil Lavingia, Founder, Gumroad
link
Leverage is what gets people excited… the ability for the seed of an idea
to turn into a game-changer.
— Sahil Lavingia, Founder, Gumroad
link
People run the fastest they’ve ever run when death is right behind them
— Sahil Lavingia, Founder, Gumroad
link
You are the least responsible for your success and failure. So just, do
— Sahil Lavingia, Founder, Gumroad
link
Aim for the experience that is most useful rather than the simplest
— Sahil Lavingia, Founder, Gumroad
link
Startup mistake: They focus their networking on the top instead of the
middle
— Adam Rodnitzky, Co-founder, Favo.rs
link
Most people like to build and grow things. You can chalk the psychology up
to our agrarian past
— Brad Hargreaves, Co-founder, GA
link
The winners of a unit economics contest would be more likely to build
successful companies
— Brad Hargreaves, Co-founder, GA
link
Martyrs inspire guilt, and guilt is a terrible emotion to inspire in a
group
— Brad Hargreaves, Co-founder, GA
link
The scene will kill you and your company
— Brad Hargreaves, Co-founder, GA
link
(getting funded) It’s a guaranteed lifetime addiction to
entrepreneurship
— Brad Hargreaves, Co-founder, GA
link
A TechCrunch article is no way for your users to hear news about your
company
— Brian Bailey, Author, Team Gowalla
link
The key to staying sane at a startup is hanging out with a different social
circle (non-tech)
— Paul Stamatiou, Co-founder, Picplum
link
Once you have around 1000 users, shift all your energy to
engaging/understanding them
— Sean Ellis, CEO/Founder Qualaroo
link
Areas that prevent creative problem solving. 1. Too much focus on financial
rewards
— Sean Ellis, CEO/Founder Qualaroo
link
Take the time to build relationships with potential acquirers. You never
know when you may need them
— John O’Farrell, Partner, Andreessen
Horowitz link
I think of bootstrapping as a very slow form of raising money
— Tony Stubblebine, CEO, Lift
link
Startup years are like dog years — One year at a startup is like seven
anywhere else
— Eric Stromberg, Co-founder,
Oyster
link
I believe strongly that these “20 seconds of interaction” will be
increasingly important
— Eric Stromberg, Co-founder,
Oyster
link
The lower the CEO salary, the more likely it is to succeed
— Peter Thiel, Co-founded Paypal,
Investor
link
I believe in market-first approach. Any sufficiently big market will give
you tons of interesting ideas
— Paras Chopra, CEO, Wingify
link
You hear just how screwed up most of these successful startups were on the
way up
— Paul Graham, Co-founder, Y-combinator
link
Let’s stop giving lying on stage and vanity metrics a free pass
Never let a line of communication go cold with a potential acquirer
— Jason Roberts, Founder AnyFu,
AppIgnite
link
Revenue first is key when you don’t have a cofounder
— Tracy Osborn, CEO, WeddingLovely
link
Everything Apple develops today is tied back into their operating system —
the trunk
— Spencer Fry, Co-founder, Uncover
link
You will not be very helpful if you cannot code pre product market fit
— Ching Naiyun, Turned hacker aged 27
link
If you’re only getting “That’s cool”, then it’s time to worry. You need to
get to “Oh my god”
I argue that along with hard work, you need to know when to double down
An inward-facing thought process is exactly what you don’t want
Problems that Introverts Have with Networking. 1. Making small talk
— Nathan Hurst, Founder, Ohours,
Hirelite
link
It took us almost three years to know what exactly we had to do during
those three days
— Vinicius Vacanti, Co-Founder &
CEO, Yipit
link
Put headphones on, people distract you less. Listen to foreign music, it
distracts you less
— Andy Crump, Co-Founder, Bluefields
link
Investors: They hate MBA speak, they find it pretentious and boring
— Jacob Brody, Startup/VC Stuff at
MESA+
link
Don’t get lost in the feedback maze. Everyone on the planet loves to give
feedback…
— Jesse Middleton, Head of Biz Dev,
Jirafe link
Don’t fear the no-man’s land between early adopters and mainstream. Use the
Chasm Shield
— Nikhil Kalghatgi, VC, Gangnam Style
link
For an idea to replicate it has to be simple enough for a friend to talk
about it at a party
— Jonah Peretti, Co-Founder, BuzzFeed
link
You Have To Grit Your Teeth, Be A Warrior, Or Do Something Less
Disruptive
— Travis Kalanick, CEO, Uber
link
(with acquirers) Just avoid dropping your pants completely until you get
the ballpark offer
— David Cohen, Founder/CEO, TechStars
link
I created more fear of not starting than the fear of starting
— Amir Khella, Creator of Keynotopia
link
Diversity of channels actually increases your risk that you never find a
scalable channel at all
— Brian Balfour, Co-founded 4 companies
link
No matter which chicken or the egg problem you are solving for, don’t be
afraid of brute force
— Brian Balfour, Co-founded 4 companies
link
Yes,” means no. “Where can I buy that?” means maybe. “Here’s $20 dollars,”
means yes.
— Tristan Kromer, Grasshopper herder
link
Three elements must converge for a behaviour to occur: Motivation, Ability
and Trigger
If you don’t excite people first, no one will bother to spend time
understanding your website
Something people seldom talk about with entrepreneurship is how corrosive
it can be to relationships
— Pete Warden, Founder, Jetpac
link
It’s paramount to at least be open about messing up
— Kyle Bragger, Makes things
(Forrst) link
You can’t 80/20 everything. There are some things that you have to go
beyond that and be the best in the world at
— Mark Zuckerberg, Co-founder, Facebook
link
Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it
works
— Steve Jobs, Apple
link
(web) It bypasses all middlemen. And, it turns out, there are a lot of
middlepersons in this society
— Steve Jobs, Apple
link
What people mention far less often is that entrepreneurship is also
tedious
— Alison Johnston, Co-founder, InstaEDU
link
Trouble usually arises when, under the guise of efficiency, people stop
talking and just start doing
— Bryce Roberts, VC (OATV)
link
Do you want to build an institution fit for a future worth fighting for?
— Umair Haque, Author, Economist
link
