I prefer to invest in a company that's going after a small but rapidly growing market than a big but slow growing one.
... how much time you should be spending on hiring? The answer is 0 or 25 percent.
One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
A lot of people treat choosing their cofounder with even less importance than they put on hiring. Don't do this.
I care much more about the growth rate of the market than it's current size and I also care if there's any reason it's going to top out.
When it comes to starting startups, in many ways, it's easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup.
Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore.
If you look at successful pivots, they almost always are a pivot into something that the founder wanted. Not a random made up idea.
Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers.
One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.
You have to be decisive. Indecisiveness is a startup killer.
A board member of mine used to say sales fix everything in a startup, and that is really true.
Why now, why is this the perfect time for this particular idea, and to start this particular company?
Cofounder relationships are among the most important in the entire company.
You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.
You also really want to take the time to think about how the market is going to evolve.You need a market that's going to be big in 10 years.
If you can just learn to think about the market first, you will have a big leg up on most people starting startups.
Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.
... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
For early employees you want people that have somewhat of a risk-taking attitude.
AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
You want to sound crazy, but you want to actually be right.
Here's a good rule of thumb: don't worry about a competitor at all, until they're actually beating you with a real shipped product.
You have to save the vision speeches for when the company is winning. When you're not winning, you just have to get momentum back.
