Quotes About Startups

Innovation accounting

Because startups often accidentally build something nobody wants, it doesn't matter much if they do it on time and on budget. The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build—the thing customers want and will pay for—as quickly as possible.

At its heart, a startup is a catalyst that transforms ideas into products.

I've come to believe that learning is the essential unit of progress for startups. The effort that is not absolutely necessary for learning what customers want can be eliminated. I call this validated learning because it is always demonstrated by positive improvements in the startup's core metrics.

I knew that as the company grew, we would need additional processes and systems designed to coordinate the company's operations at each larger size. And yet I had also seen many startups become ossified and bureaucratic out of a misplaced desire to become "professional.

Startups use many kinds of innovation: novel scientific discoveries, repurposing an existing technology for a new use, devising a new business model that unlocks value that was hidden, or simply bringing a product or service to a new location or a previously underserved set of customers.

see startups succeed and change the world. The passion,

Second, startups must attempt to tune the engine from the baseline toward the ideal. This may take many attempts. After the startup has made all the micro changes and product optimizations it can to move its baseline toward the ideal, the company reaches a decision point. That is the third step: pivot or persevere.

The grim reality is that most startups fail. Most new products are not successful. Most new ventures do not live up to their potential.

Startups don't starve; they drown." There are always a zillion new ideas about how to make the product better floating around, but the hard truth is that most of those ideas make a difference only at the margins.

In my opinion, one of the most exciting potentials of the blockchain relate to creating new business models, whether in public or in private settings. In most of these cases, the new models don't care for incumbents because they are mostly on a disruption quest.

Relative to all the start-ups out there, getting a valuation of $1 billion is rarely accomplished.

From a relatively early age I got interested in business.

First of all, every new company today is being built in the face of massive economic headwinds, making the challenge far greater than it was in the relatively benign '90s.

The first people in a company are the most important. They will hire people like themselves and create a culture that either works or eats away at the chance for success.

There will be hundreds of new companies that will be created to develop these very simple data devices.

When we talk about Techstars, we think of it as this worldwide network that helps entrepreneurs succeed.

I think the rise of A.I. is bigger than the rise of mobile. Large companies are sometimes as worried about startups as startups are about large companies. Ultimately, it will be about who delivers the best service or product.

There's a lot of glorification of startups and being a founder. People brush the failures under the rug, but that's the worst thing you can do. You kind of have to face it head on.

It's worth noting that everything - from the Internet to electric cars, genomic sequencing, mobile apps, and social media - were pioneered by startups, not existing companies.

I have started many companies now worth more than $100 million. So I know a little about business.

I focus on consumer Internet. Sometimes it's a working prototype; sometimes it's an idea on a napkin. I don't do a ton of deals a year, and I really like working with startups - it's the only way I can invest. It fits my ADD brain.

I think that sometimes people talk about disruption, and I've seen tons of startups come in as disruptors and then disappear. And I think what we need to do as an industry is think about a world that is dominated by mobile and software and not extrapolate from what was. And I think a lot of big companies tend to want to do that.

I've long believed that if you're not embarrassed by your first product release, you've released too late.