Startup Quotes & Sayings

There are so many similarities between a startup venture and a political campaign - the rhythm, the tempo, the hours, the intensity. — Mike McCurry

Imagine working 20% smarter instead of 20% longer ... Work-life balance and startup success at any stage aren't mutually exclusive. There are enough hours in the day to be effective and present. — David Cummings

Thinking about joining a startup? Ask for a hiring bonus equal to the exercise cost, early exercise rights, and NSOs instead of ISOs. Exercise as soon as possible and ASAP file an 83(b) Election. Recently hired? If you can afford to fully exercise your options and are permitted to do so, ask to get your ISOs converted to NSOs, perform an early exercise, and file an 83(b) Election. — David Weekly

The idea should come first, the startup should come second. — Sam Altman

You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer. — Sam Altman

Science and vision are not opposites or even at odds. They need each other. I sometimes hear other startup folks say something along the lines of: 'If entrepreneurship was a science, then anyone could do it.' I'd like to point out that even science is a science, and still very few people can do it, let alone do it well. — Eric Ries

Everyone has an idea. But it's really about executing the idea and attracting other people to help you work on the idea. — Jack Dorsey

Please don't get hung up on this question of whether you need to have experience in an industry before you launch your startup. — Richard Branson

That's a problem. I mean, like any sort of growing startup organization, we are sort of overwhelmed by our growth. And that means we're getting enormous quantity of whistleblower disclosures of a very high caliber, but don't have enough people to actually process and vet this information. — Julian Assange

Building a startup is an exercise in institution building; thus, it necessarily involves management. This — Eric Ries

Startups and small businesses that do not invest at least 10% of their profits into R&D will have the privilege of remaining a startup and/or a small business. — Mark Anthony Peterson

Brands that stand out from the competition are purposefully disruptive or different — Bernard Kelvin Clive

If a startup stays in Microsoft, it does not have a chance, because all it tries to do goes against what Microsoft is about. — Leroy Hood

When a new company is formed, its founders must have a startup mentality - a beginner's mind, open to everything because, well, what do they have to lose? (This is often something they later look back upon wistfully.) But when that company becomes successful, its leaders often cast off that startup mentality because, they tell themselves, they have figured out what to do. They don't want to be beginners anymore. That may be human nature, but I believe it is a part of our nature that should be resisted. By resisting the beginner's mind, you make yourself more prone to repeat yourself than to create something new. The attempt to avoid failure, in other words, makes failure more likely. — Ed Catmull

You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. — Paul Graham

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

The first thing to recognize is that no startup has time to do optional things. — Ben Horowitz

It's not about the content we are creating but how much content our customers are creating for us. — Roger Hamilton

Europe is made of history,
America of philosophy,
Asia of prosperity,
and Africa of opportunity. — Sami Leino

Whether by design or circumstance, every startup will eventually get disrupted. — Jay Samit

If you have a startup that's keeping it up at night because you think it's so great, then you should do that. — Sam Altman

It's difficult to get large groups of people, to the extreme levels of focus and productivity that you need, for a startup to be successful. — Sam Altman

Every startup has a chance to change the world, by bringing not just a new product, but an entirely new institution into existence. — Eric Ries

Every startup should address a real and demonstrated need in the world - if you build a solution to a problem lots of people have, it's so easy to sell your product to the world. — Kevin Systrom

Every entrepreneur faces trade-offs when founding and growing their company. As we discovered at YouTube, those early decisions have far-reaching impacts and lead to unforeseen pitfalls down the road. Noam Wasserman uses vivid anecdotes and deep research to expertly outline the key early choices that define a startup, making The Founder's Dilemmas an invaluable alternative to real-world trial and error. — Chad Hurley

As of 2011, it cost about $5,000 to launch a tech startup. — Peter Diamandis

It doesn't matter if you call it a boom or a bubble. The startup business moves in cycles, and what goes up will eventually come down. — Eric Ries

By the way, that's my number one piece of advice if you're going to join a startup: pick a rocket ship. — Sam Altman

A lot of the machines that Google is built on - commodity is the polite word for them - they're regular PCs and so they're not always the most reliable. — Jessica Livingston

Most phenomenal startup teams create businesses that ultimately fail. Why? They built something that nobody wanted. — Eric Ries

She reverse engineered a startup based on market conditions, industry trends, and nascent investor fads. — Douglas Rushkoff

In 2007, there weren't any other accelerators, at least that I was aware of. We were almost the prototypical Y Combinator founders: We were highly technical but had never done a startup before. We also didn't know anyone in the Valley - investors, other entrepreneurs, potential hires. YC seemed like a great way to bootstrap that network. — Patrick Collison

If you want to build a startup that has a good chance of succeeding, don't listen to me. Listen to Paul Graham and others who are applying tons of data to the idea of startup success. That will maximize your chance of being successful. — Michael Arrington

One of the cool things we're seeing at TaskRabbit is local tech and gaming startups hiring TaskRabbits to test their products and deliver immediate user feedback. As the founder of a tech startup, I can tell you that this type of focus group testing is paramount - and usually really pricey and difficult to coordinate. — Leah Busque

And The San Francisco Chronicle launched "an off-site startup-style incubator. " As Audrey Cooper, the managing editor, explained, "We hope to eventually get to the point where instead of being a newspaper company that produces websites, we think of ourselves as a digital company that also produces a newspaper. Unless you flip that switch, I don't think any newspaper will be truly successful at negotiating the digital switchover. — Anonymous

The benefit to building a startup is that customers don't have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology. — Aaron Levie

In a startup, both the problem and solution are unknown. — Eric Ries

Essentials of how to do a startup do not include writing a business plan — Steve Blank

only one out of every ten aspirants actually gets around to establishing a startup business. Basically, it means that there is a huge gap between the dreamers from the doers. — Bill Robb

More important than starting any startup, is getting to know a lot of potential co-founders. — Sam Altman

The typical workday, particularly in startup mode, is from nine to six or nine to seven, then you take a two-hour break to work out and eat dinner. By that time, you're relaxed, and then you work until midnight or one A.M. If there was no break with physical activity, you'd be more tired and less alert. — Aaron Patzer

America is an unsolvable problem: a nation divided and deeply in hate with itself. If it was a startup, we'd understand how unfixable the situation is; most of us would leave for a fresh start, and the company would fall apart. America is MySpace. — Michael Arrington

When I came to the United States in 2004 to attend university at Stanford, I was instantly inspired by the stories and advice from startup leaders in Silicon Valley and beyond, who had endeavoured to create new opportunities and improve lives around the world. — Mike Krieger

If you wanted to build an Internet startup in 2005, you had to buy your own servers and hire someone to manage it. Now, that's unheard of. — Sam Altman

I rationalize this by telling myself that while the work might be ignoble, it's not necessarily evil. We're not Hitler - we're just annoying people. — Dan Lyons

In a startup no facts exist inside the building, only opinions. — Steve Blank

When valuing a startup, add $500k for every engineer, and subtract $250k for every MBA. — Aaron Patzer

You can basically change everything in a startup but the market. — Sam Altman

I was amazed at how the life of a freelancer differed from running a remote studio for another company. I thought I knew what I was doing in 2004 when I left Eidos because I had run Ion Storm Austin, which was my own independent studio. I had run a business unit inside Origin, but being part of a startup is crazy. — Warren Spector

It's very important as a startup to get early press because, although it may not be a large number of people, having a 'Fast Company' story - some of those people that read it are going to be your next employees and hires, your next investors. — Jason Calacanis

The beginning is always NOW. — Roy Bennett

Startup stories are always smoother in the telling than they are in reality. A startup is not one, but a series of 'Aha!' moments, and some which seem like 'Aha!' moments but turn out not to be. — Anthony Goldbloom

The majority are satisfied living within the idea of the reality instead of the reality of the idea. — Richie Norton

If you have an idea that you can't get out of your head, do a startup. Otherwise join a startup. — Fred Wilson

If you have managers reporting to managers in a startup, you will fail. Once you get beyond startup, if you have managers reporting to managers, you will create politics. — Mark Cuban

Thought Leadership
"The new economics for industry, government, education" Book by W. Edwards Deming
"In God we trust. All others must bring data."
William Edwards Deming,
Statistician, Professor and Author
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The Startup Act should give all Americans, not just immigrants, a better shot at being tomorrow's engineers and entrepreneurs. And that opportunity could begin at a young age with education in computer programming. — Marvin Ammori

A successful startup takes a very long time - certainly much longer than most founders think at the outset. You cannot treat it as an all-nighter. You have to eat well, sleep well, and exercise. You have to spend time with your family and friends. You also need to work in an area you're actually passionate about - nothing else will sustain you for ten years. — Sam Altman

Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same. — Ben Horowitz

A startup is like a mosquito. A bear can absorb a hit and a crab is armored against one, but a mosquito is designed for one thing : to score. No energy is wasted on defense. The defense of mosquitos, as a species, is that there are a lot of them, but this is little consolation to the individual mosquito. — Paul Graham

Entrepreneurs don't ask for permission. They act per a mission. — Ryan Lilly

For a startup to overcome obstacles and succeed, it must foster limitless thinking. By hiring students into their first career job, you get to set their framework for how a company functions and instill them with your values for your company's culture. — Jay Samit

Regret nothing. Everything broken can be remade. And everything remade can once again be broken — Kulpreet Yadav

Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore. — Sam Altman

My most radical shift was leaving Intel and joining Google, a small startup at the time, even though I was pregnant. — Susan Wojcicki

A startup can focus on only one metric. So you have to decide what that is and ignore everything else. — Noah Kagan

My first job after college was at Magic Quest, an educational software startup company where I was responsible for writing the content. I found that job somewhat accidentally but after working there a few weeks and loving my job, I decided to pursue a career in technology. — Susan Wojcicki

If you are a new startup company, try not to arouse the interest or suspicion of your competition; especially if they are a bigger company. They can crush you while you are still in your startup phase. Lie low while still strengthening your bottom line. — Richard Branson

I think we didn't know what we were doing. I think the hallmark of a really good entrepreneur is that you're not really going to build one specific company. The goal - at least the way I think about entrepreneur- ship - is you realize one day that you can't really work for anyone else. You have to start your own thing. It almost doesn't matter what that thing is. We had six different business plan changes, and then the last one was PayPal. — Max Levchin

When you're doing a startup, life is not all roses and rainbows, like you see on Instagram, and killing it. — Paige Craig

The problem with the Internet startup craze isn't that too many people are starting companies; it's that too many people aren't sticking with it. That's somewhat understandable, because there are many moments that are filled with despair and agony, when you have to fire people and cancel things and deal with very difficult situations. That's when you find out who you are and what your values are. — Steve Jobs

When strategy, culture, and brand harmonize, they amplify one another and resonate loud and clear. — Kate O'Neill

A NASA-funded study estimates that if the price of a ticket to space approached $100,000, close to a million people would buy one. That's a $100 billion industry. Microsoft cofounder Paul Allen gave me $20 million in startup funding to go after that market. — Burt Rutan

The more detailed we made our plans, the longer our cycle times became — Donald G. Reinertsen

Recruiting talent is no different than any other challenge a startup faces. It's all about selling. — Vivek Wadhwa

Of course the Silicon Valley is unique and Berlin is not yet comparable. But of all the different cities that are building a startup infrastructure, Berlin is the one with the most similar energy. — Mark Zuckerberg

Like a tracer running through the veins of the city, networks of air quality sensors attached to bikes can help measure an individual's exposure to pollution and draw a dynamic map of the urban air on a human scale, as in the case of the Copenhagen Wheel developed by new startup Superpedestrian. — Carlo Ratti

When Thomas and John Knoll launched Photoshop 1.0 in 1990, the software couldn't even handle color images. But their offerings got the startup noticed by Apple and Adobe, both of whom became key to the fledgling company's later success. — Jay Samit

An entrepreneur without funding is a musician without an instrument. — Robert A. Rice Jr.

I will learn by screwing up. — Greg Bear

Love the Problem, Not the Solution. — Ash Maurya

The startup's goal is to find a profitable customer acquisition strategy by spending small amounts of money in a lot of them, measuring results, and then narrowing down the best channels, while performing PDCA for continuous improvement. — Francisco S. Homem De Mello

Networking is all about connecting with people. But then again, isn't that what life is about? The more time you can find to get out of the office and build true friendships, the farther your startup will go. Entrepreneurs need to remember to spend as much time working on their business as they do in their business. — Jay Samit

Embrace iteration as the road to improvement, but don't let that lull you into rolling out poorly-thought-out crap. — Kate O'Neill

Business ideas are like those flying dragons in Avatar. First you have to find one, let it choose you, then be brave enough to ride it. — Ryan Lilly

The Lean Startup has evolved into a movement that is having a significant impact on how companies are built, funded and scaled. — Eric Ries

Entrepreneurs see what others can't, do what others won't, and accomplish what others dream. — Ryan Lilly

Every startup is small at the start. Every monopoly dominates a large share of its market. Therefore, every startup should start with a very small market. Always err on the side of starting too small. — Peter Thiel

A lot of my energy is going to Code for America, Jen Pahlka's non-profit startup. We're doing a lot of great work teaching government how to apply technology and changing the culture of government. — Tim O'Reilly

You can have a startup and one other thing, you can have a family, but you probably can't have many other hobbies. — Sam Altman

Passion without knowledge and the desire to learn is foolishness — Abdulrahman Hariri

Thou shalt not invest in a needless business. Thou shalt not trade time for money. Thou shalt not operate on a limited scale. Thou shalt not relinquish control. Thou shalt not let a business startup be an event over process. — M.J. DeMarco

The life of a startup is full of ups and downs, an emotional roller coaster ride that you can't quite imagine if you've spent your whole career in a corporation. — Harvey MacKay

The median startup is a business that's capitalized with about $25,000. The financing of that business comes from the entrepreneur's savings. The business is a retail or personal service business, a hair salon or a clothing store, that kind of thing. — Scott Shane

We paired this announcement of the R&D [commitment] with the so-called Breakthrough Energy Coalition, which is 27 [major investors] saying, "Hey, we'll put significant money into [energy innovations] when they're ready to spin out probably into startup companies." — Bill Gates

I'm a creature of startups. For example, I don't want government interference in the startup ecosystem. — Michael Arrington

When we're considering investing in a startup, we first want to know that the entrepreneur has a clear understanding of the market. Who are the major players? What about this market is ripe for disruption? What is this startup's unfair advantage to disrupt this market? In the first conversation we have with a company, these are questions that we're looking for clear answers to. — Mike Belsito

Maturity is when you stop complaining and making excuses and start making changes. — Roy Bennett

Coming from Ireland, it's quite hard to do a startup because you're culturally so far away from what everyone else is doing. In the Bay Area, it's much easier. It's the equivalent of an actor or actress moving to Hollywood. — John Collison

I think that's exactly what Silicon Valley was all about in those days. Let's do a startup in our parents' garage and try to create a business. — Walter Isaacson