Quotes
A jack of all trades is a master of none, but oftentimes better than a master of one.
-Unknown-
Persistence is essential because knowledge is rarely imparted on the first attempt.
Bill Walsh, American football coach
The only good generic startup advice is that there is no good generic startup advice.
Elad Gil, startup investor and entrepreneur
Silicon Valley is a system for running experiments. It’s the nature of experiments that some fail—the key is for the ones that work to really really work.
Benedict Evans, Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
…[We] expect to lose our entire investment on 1/3 of our investments, we expect to get our money back (or maybe make a small return) on 1/3 of our investments, and we expect to generate the bulk of our returns on 1/3 of our investments.
Fred Wilson, Partner, Union Square Ventures
…a full 65% of financings fail to return 1X capital. And perhaps more interestingly, only 4% produce a return of 10X or more and only 10% produce a return of 5X or more.
Seth Levine, Managing Director, Foundry Group
That’s just how I am built. I’d rather go slower and have more equity than gamble with someone else’s money.
Ron Rudzin, President and CEO, Saatva
The best entrepreneurs are always raising money, yet never raising money.
The easiest way to raise money is to build something that investors use.
Rahul Vohra, founder and CEO, Superhuman
People with the true innovations that will build a better world very rarely have control of the resources to make those innovations possible.
Ross Baird, co-founder, Village Capital
The bar to create a more diverse industry is difficult when one looks for folks that most resemble themselves; and while talent is evenly distributed, unfortunately, opportunity is not…When you couple the lack of gender and racial diversity with the lack of educational institution diversity, you not only end up with teams that look similar, but you also end up with teams that think in a similar fashion. Not only is our industry lacking in gender and racial balance, but we also suffer from a lack of cognitive diversity.
Richard Kerby
Product-market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.
Marc Andreessen, co-founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
You can always feel when product-market fit isn’t happening. The customers aren’t quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn’t spreading, usage isn’t growing that fast, press reviews are kind of ‘blah’, the sales cycle takes too long, and lots of deals never close. And you can always feel product-market fit when it’s happening. The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it—or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company checking account. You’re hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can. Reporters are calling because they’ve heard about your hot new thing and they want to talk to you about it. You start getting entrepreneur of the year awards from Harvard Business School. Investment bankers are staking out your house. You could eat free for a year at Buck’s.
Marc Andreessen, co-founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
I am sure that Twitter knew when it achieved product-market fit, but it’s far murkier for most startups. How many customers (or site visits or monthly active uniques or booked revenue dollars, etc.) must you have to prove the point? …[There] may be multiple sub-markets, each of which need their own product. I show below that [Fred Wilson] himself didn’t realize that Loudcloud had achieved product-market fit even though we had. It’s usually not black and white.
Ben Horowitz, co-founder and General Partner, Andreessen Horowitz
[Having] created a product that customers are finding so much value in that they are willing to both buy it (after their test phase) and recommend it. Metrics that show whether PMF has been achieved include: revenue, renewal rates, NPS (net promoter score).
Matt Mochary, CEO, The Mochary Group
…fundraising is a sales process. The buyer is shopping for equity in startups and the seller is looking for cash in exchange for equity and shared governing control of his or her company.
Mark Suster, General Partner, Upfront Ventures
Stories constitute the single most powerful weapon in a leader’s arsenal.
Dr. Howard Gardner, Professor, Harvard Graduate School of Education
If there is any one secret of success it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from their angle as well as your own.
Henry Ford, founder, Ford Motor Company
For startup founders, the whole point of a first pitch meeting with venture capitalists is to secure a second one.
Beck Bamberger, investor, Backstage Capital; founder, BAM Communications
Teamwork begins by building trust. And the only way to do that is to overcome our need for invulnerability.
Patrick Lencioni, bestselling business management author
We don’t devote nearly enough scientific research to finding a cure for jerks.
Bill Watterson, creator, Calvin and Hobbes
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