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" Measuring how hard your team is working by counting the number of hours they work or what time they get in and leave is how amateurs run companies. "

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" First and deadliest of all is a founder's unwavering belief that he or she understands who the customers will be, what they need, and how to sell it to them. "

" Schools reward their students for a combination of intelligence, perseverance, and hard work - in the classroom and on the playing fields. But these metrics don't help kids understand that great grades are not a pass for a great life. "

" Value Proposition Design is a 'must have' for anyone creating a new venture. It captures the core issues around understanding and finding customer problems and designing and validating potential solutions. "

" Great VCs do everything they can to make you successful. But just like your bank, credit card company, mortgage holder, etc. they are not confused where their long-term loyalty lies. "

" There's nothing wrong with a business that supports you and perhaps an extended family. But if you want to build a scalable startup, you need to be asking how you can you get enough customers/users/payers to build a business that can grow revenues past several $100M/year. "

" Each industry in a region should develop a playbook that expands and details the strategy and tactics of how to build a scalable startup. "

" In winning companies, everybody pulls in the same direction. "

" For Customer Development to succeed, everyone on the team - from investor or parent company to engineers, marketers and founders - needs to understand and agree that the Customer Development process is different to its core. "

" The convergence of digital trends, along with the rise of China and globalization, has upended the rules for almost every business in every corner of the globe. "

" Not all new ventures are at the same stage of maturity. "

" At 19, I joined the Air Force during the Vietnam War. "

" Any dispassionate observer would recognize that on Day One, a start-up has no customers, and unless the founder is a true domain expert, he or she can only guess about the customer, problem, and business model. "

" As an entrepreneur, my problem was that I had too many ideas. "

" Great entrepreneurial DNA is comprised of leadership, technological vision, frugality, and the desire to succeed. "

" Not all startups are alike. One of the key ways they differ is in the relationship between a startup's new product and its market. "

" Skunk works differed from advanced research groups in that they were more than just product development groups. They had direct interaction with customers and controlled a sales channel which allowed them to negotiate their own deals with customers. "

" The introduction of new technology is always disruptive to existing markets, particularly to content/copyright owners who sell through well-established distribution channels. "

" Normally when I have students over, we sit in the house and look at the fields to try to catch a glimpse of a bobcat hunting. "

" What's been missing from regions outside of Silicon Valley is a 'playbook.' In American football, a playbook contains a sports team's strategies and plays. It struck me that every region needs its own industry playbook on how to compete globally. "

" It typically takes multiple iterations and pivots to find product/market fit - the match between what you're building and who will buy it. "

" Founding a company is a sheer act of will and tenacity in the face of immense skepticism from everyone - investors, customers, friends, family, and employees, to name a few. "

" As I've gotten older, I've come to grips that the unexamined life is what works for most people. Most take what they learned in school, get a job, marry, buy a house, have a family, become a great parent, serve their god, community and country, hang with friends, and live a good life. And for them that's great. "

" Unlike many other startup processes, Customer Development is deep, detailed, and rigorous. "

" Companies that acquire startups for their intellectual property, teams, or product lines are acquiring startups that are searching for a business model. If they acquire later stage companies who already have users/customers and/or a predictable revenue stream, they are acquiring companies that are executing. "

" When your product solves a problem that costs customers sleep, revenue, or profits, things are definitely looking up. "

" Unfortunately, as you hire more people, the casual, informal 'do what it takes' culture, which worked so well at less than 40 people, becomes chaotic and less effective. "

" Founders, presuming they know their customers, assume they know all the features customers need. "

" The Lean Startup is a process for turning ideas into commercial ventures. Its premise is that startups begin with a series of untested hypotheses. They succeed by getting out of the building, testing those hypotheses and learning by iterating and refining minimal viable products in front of potential customers. "

" History has shown that time and market forces provide equilibrium in balancing interests, whether the new technology is a video recorder, a personal computer, an MP3 player, or now the Net. "

" While 'The Owner's Manual' is not a formula for guaranteed success by any means, we're confident it will help reduce the failure rate of most startups that use our Customer Development process. "