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" 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. "

Related Quotes:

" The art of entrepreneurship and the science of Customer Development is not just getting out of the building and listening to prospective customers. It's understanding who to listen to and why. "

" Only by moving away from the comforts of your conference room to truly engage with and listen to your customers can you learn in depth about their problems, produce features to solve those problems, and learn what drives customers to recommend, approve, and purchase products. "

" 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. "

" The food replacement category is what it sounds like - companies are substituting plants or food grown in a lab to replace meat, fish, eggs, milk - or, like Soylent, to package nutritionally complete meals into a drink. "

" Most people appear to live an unexamined life, cruising through the years without much reflection about what it means, and/or taking what life hands them and believing it's all predestined. "

" You can get a good handle on a company's culture before you even get inside the building. For example, when companies say, 'We value our employees' but have reserved parking spots, a private cafeteria, and over-the-top offices for the executives, that tells you more than any PR spin. "

" The stock market clearly values companies that can deliver disruptive innovation. "

" Market type determines the startup's customer feedback and acquisition activities and spending. It changes customer needs, adoption rates, product features, and positioning as well as its launch strategies, channels and activities. "

" We now understand the distinction between startups - who search for a business model - versus existing companies - that execute a business plan. "

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

" One can make the case that the New York venture capital industry is rooted in the 21st century, not the 20th. "

Venture Capital

" Face-to-face customer feedback refines or validates every component of the startup's business model, not just the product itself. "

" Founders have continually struggled with and adapted the 'big business' tools, rules, and processes taught in business schools when startups failed to execute 'the plan,' never admitting to the entrepreneurs that no startup executes to its business plan. "

" 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. "

" Out of electronics school, my first assignment was to a fighter base in Florida. My roommate, Glen, would become my best friend in Florida and Thailand as we were sent to different air bases in Southeast Asia. "

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

" Watching an entrepreneur fail is sad, but watching him fail from lack of nerve is tragic. "

" Visionary CEOs are not 'just' great at assuring world-class execution of a tested and successful business model: they are also world-class innovators. "

" Creating a vertically oriented regional ecosystem is a pretty amazing accomplishment for any country or industry. "

" 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. "

" The music and movie business has been consistently wrong in its claims that new platforms and channels would be the end of its businesses. In each case, the new technology produced a new market far larger than the impact it had on the existing market. "

" Great founders live for chaotic moments. "

" At the commencements I attended, graduates were classified by their academic rankings. Outstanding academic performance was noted in the programs and awarded with special honors. "

" Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money. Therefore startups trade off certainty for speed, adopting 'good enough decision making' and iterating and pivoting as they fail, learn, and discover their business model. "

" Startups are companies that are still in the process of searching for a business model. Ventures that are further along and executing their business models are no longer startups; they are early-stage companies. "

" Products are sold because they solve a problem or fill a need. Understanding problems and needs involves understanding customers and what makes them tick. "

" Innovation in an existing company is not just the sum of great technology, key acquisitions, or smart people. Corporate innovation needs a culture that matches and supports it. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" The Columbia Startup Lab is a visible symbol of how the university is making entrepreneurship an integral part of all colleges at the university. "

Entrepreneurship