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

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" A startup is not just about the idea: it's about testing and then implementing the idea. A founding team without these skills is likely dead on arrival. "

" If you've never founded a company, rest assured it never happens as elegantly and smoothly as articles in 'Inc.' and other business magazines or case studies suggest. "

" 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. "

" At some major events - your birth and death, for example - while you may be the center of attention, the events are managed by others and are more important to the people around you. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" For busy young adults, the lure of meal substitutes is simple - it's all about convenience - the level of effort to open a bottle or package is minimal, and the time from thinking you're hungry to eating is almost zero. "

" 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. "

" VCs like acquisitions as much as IPOs because the acquiring companies often can rationalize paying large multiples over the current valuation of the startup. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Visionary CEOs are product- and business-model-centric and extremely customer focused. "

" 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. "

" Michael Bloomberg has yet to get his due for engineering the New York entrepreneurial ecosystem. "

" 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. "

" Market type influences everything a company does. Strategy and tactics for one market type seldom work for another. "

" My imagination ran 24/7, and to me, every problem was a challenge to solve and new product to create. It wasn't until I started teaching that I realized that not everyone's head worked the same way. "

" 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. "

" One of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make is not understanding the relationship they have with their investors. At times, they confuse VCs with their friends. "

" The Value Proposition Canvas functions like a plug-in to the Business Model Canvas and zooms into the value proposition and customer segment to describe the interactions between customers and product more explicitly and in more detail. "

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

" 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. "

" Customer Development changes almost every aspect of startup behavior, performance, metrics, and, as often as not, success potential. "

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

" 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. "

" Companies that get started and built in New York City tend to be applied technology. "

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

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

" Understand that VCs are simply a sophisticated form of financial investors who, in turn, need to satisfy their own investors. "

" Failure will happen. It's a normal part of the startup process. "