The $100 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

A startup is the largest endeavor over which you can have definite mastery. You can have agency not just over your own life, but over a small and important part of the world. It begins by rejecting the unjust tyranny of Chance. You are not a lottery ticket. — Peter Thiel

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

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

You should focus relentlessly on something you're good at doing, but before that you must think hard about whether it will be valuable in the future. For the startup world, this means you should not necessarily start your own company, even if you are extraordinarily talented. If anything, too many people are starting their own companies today. People who understand the power law will hesitate more than others when it comes to founding a new venture: they know how tremendously successful they could become by joining the very best company while it's growing fast. The power law means that differences between companies will dwarf the differences in roles inside companies. You could have 100% of the equity if you fully fund your own venture, but if it fails you'll have 100% of nothing. Owning just 0.01% of Google, by contrast, is incredibly valuable (more than $35 million as of this writing). — Peter Thiel

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

The reality is the Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. Lean startups waste less money, because they use a disciplined approach to testing new products and ideas. — Eric Ries

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

The answers to all a startup's challenges are out there. By setting up the right mechanisms for gathering feedback, the road to success can be a less bumpy ride. — Jay Samit

We lacked something that is the key to a successful startup, and it was bigger than sound quality. It was emotional investment. If you don't love what you're building, if you're not an avid user yourself, then you will most likely fail even if you're doing everything else right. — Biz Stone

In the startup world, 'not working' is normal. — Paul Graham

Startup success is driven most by the product passion, quality, vision, team-work and persistence of the founding team and the talent that the team attracts. — Jim Breyer

Despite what some investors say, older age is an advantage in the startup world. You know more about industries and markets, and have ideas for products that the world actually needs and a better ability to motivate and manage than a kid out of school does. — Vivek Wadhwa

As an entrepreneur, the pressures of a startup can be enormous, but it's rarely life or death. — Ryan Holmes

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

Who would you talk to? That is the first question for almost any startup that you need to answer. Who is my user and where am I going to find them? — Emmett Shear

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

Working on a startup is a balancing act: being crazy enough to believe your idea can take off but not crazy enough to miss the signs when it's clearly not going to. — Mike Krieger

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

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. In other words, the Lean Startup is a new way of looking at the development of innovative new products that emphasizes fast iteration and customer insight, a huge vision, and great ambition, all at the same time. — Eric Ries

The Lean Startup works only if we are able to build an organization as adaptable and fast as the challenges it faces. This — Eric Ries

The goal of every startup experiment is to discover how to build a sustainable business around that vision. — Eric Ries

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

There's this famous observation that I totally believe: Great startup ideas are the ones that lie in the intersection of the Venn diagram of 'is a good idea' and 'looks like a bad idea.' So you want most people to think it's a bad idea and thus not compete with you until you get giant. But for it to secretly be good. — Sam Altman

I started Shutterstock without any outside funding; I believe in creating a lean startup. By not taking outside investors early, I was forced to use every dollar I had as efficiently as possible. And I was able to keep a large part of the company. — Jon Oringer

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

Define your own success: If you're going after a million bucks with your own startup, you've already failed yourself. Instead, do something because it's interesting, challenging, it offers you the chance to learn something new or gives you the chance to work with really interesting people. Most startups that are designed to make money, especially in this environment, don't. — Tara Hunt

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

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

Landing a million-dollar investment for your startup is exhilarating. But as big as that number sounds, it doesn't go far. Many startups just getting off the ground won't have a CFO to monitor finances. It doesn't take much for spending to spiral out of control. — Ryan Holmes

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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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

In the early stage of a startup, hiring senior people is usually a mistake. You just want people that get stuff done. — Sam Altman

My advice was to start a policy of making reversible decisions before anyone left the meeting or the office. In a startup, it doesn't matter if you're 100 percent right 100 percent of the time. What matters is having forward momentum and a tight fact-based data/metrics feedback loop to help you quickly recognize and reverse any incorrect decisions. That's why startups are agile. By the time a big company gets the committee to organize the subcommittee to pick a meeting date, your startup could have made 20 decisions, reversed five of them and implemented the fifteen that worked. — Steven Gary Blank

The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors. Any big market is a bad choice, and a big market already served by competing companies is even worse. This is why it's always a red flag when entrepreneurs talk about getting 1% of a $100 billion market. In practice, a large market will either lack a good starting point or it will be open to competition, so it's hard to ever reach that 1%. And even if you do succeed in gaining a small foothold, you'll have to be satisfied with keeping the lights on: cutthroat competition means your profits will be zero. — Peter Thiel

Every thing at a startup gets modeled after the founders. Whatever the founders do becomes the culture. — Sam Altman

I basically apply with my teams the lean startup principles I used in the private sector - go into Silicon Valley mode, work at startup speed, and attack, doing things in short amounts of time with extremely limited resources. — Todd Park

Our job as leaders is to find those innovators and release their mojo - lean startup-style - to serve the American people better. — Todd Park

Generally speaking, experience counts for something. So you'd expect entrepreneurs who've been through the ups and downs of a tech startup to have an advantage over the newcomers. Or at least have an equal chance at success. But in fact the opposite may be true. A number of venture capitalists I've spoken with have said that too many "old guard" entrepreneurs are not being bold enough in their business decisions, and it's hurting their startups. — Michael Arrington

It almost goes without saying that when you are a startup, one of the first things you do is you start setting aside money to defend yourself from patent lawsuits, because any successful company, even moderately successful, is going to get hit by a patent lawsuit from someone who's just trying to look for a payout. — Charles Duhigg

The best founders are extremely thoughtful and have an eye for quality. I don't know if there's any generic advice here that would be helpful. Startup knowledge is a moving target. — Naval Ravikant

The really dramatic growth happens when a startup only has three of four people, so only three or four people see that, whereas tens of thousands see business as it's practiced by Boeing or Philip Morris. — Jessica Livingston

If you're building a startup or any sort of organization, take a few moments to reflect on the qualities that the people you most enjoy working with embody and the user experience of new people joining your organization, from the offer letter to their first day. — Matt Mullenweg

Like a lot of other DJs, I've been wondering when the first DJ game was going to happen. Somebody even pitched me on their own idea and I thought, "I'm not a video game startup; I don't know what I'm supposed to do with this." — DJ Shadow

There is never a time in a company's history when cost control can be relegated to the back burner, but for a startup company, keeping costs low is a vital necessity. — Felix Dennis

Key is the question of where do new ideas come from. Historically, four places: government labs, big corporations, startup companies, and research universities. — Nicholas Negroponte

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

Most startups eventually pivot to adjust to what the market is telling them. — Alejandro Cremades

We are not creators; only combiners of the created. Invention isn't about new ingredients, but new recipes. And innovations taste the best. — Ryan Lilly

Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter. — Sam Altman

Eric Ries, author of The Lean Startup, explains that the best way to get to Product Market Fit is by starting with a "minimum viable product" and improving it based on feedback - as opposed to what most of us do, which is to try to launch publicly with what we think is our final, perfected product. Today, — Ryan Holiday

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

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

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

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 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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The beginning is always NOW. — Roy Bennett

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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