The Art Of The Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide For Anyone Starting Anything Quotes
"Everyone should carefully observe which way his heart draws him, and then choose that way with all his strength." - Hasidic saying
"The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning—to create a product or service that makes the world a better place."
"Forget mission statements; they’re long, boring, and irrelevant. No one can ever remember them—much less implement them."
"The greatest idea, technology, product, or service is short-lived without a sustainable business model."
"The final step is to compile three lists: (a) major milestones you need to meet; (b) assumptions that are built into your business model; and (c) tasks you need to accomplish to create an organization."
"I have never thought of writing for reputation and honor. What I have in my heart must come out; that is the reason why I compose." - Ludwig van Beethoven
"Meaning is not about money, power, or prestige. It’s not even about creating a fun place to work. Among the meanings of 'meaning' are to make the world a better place, increase the quality of life, right a terrible wrong, prevent the end of something good."
"Having that desire [to make meaning] doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed, but it does mean that if you fail, at least you failed doing something worthwhile."
"Instead of a mission statement and all the baggage that comes with it, craft a mantra for your organization."
"What you should do is (a) rein in your anal tendency to craft a document and (b) implement."
"The hardest thing about getting started is getting started."
"Don’t worry about being embarrassed. Don’t wait to develop the perfect product or service. Good enough is good enough."
"Successful companies are started, and made successful, by at least two, and usually more, soulmates."
"Your goal is to catalyze passion—pro or anti. Don’t be offended if people take issue with what you’ve done; the only result that should offend (and scare) you is lack of interest."
"The wisest course of action is to take your best shot with a prototype, immediately get it to market, and iterate quickly."
"Remember: No one ever achieved success by planning for gold."
"You want to make meaning. You’ve come up with a mantra. You’ve started prototyping your product or service."
"These questions lack subtlety, but they are a useful way to consider the reality of starting an organization—even, and perhaps especially, not-for-profits, which have to fight for money just to stay alive."
"The more precisely you can describe your customer, the better."
"You can innovate in technology, markets, and customers, but inventing a new business model is a bad bet."
"Preventing scattering is exactly what you need to do as the fifth, and final, step of launching your enterprise."
"The employees of eBay, for example, believe they enable people to gain financial success. This attitude empowers the employees to exceed their limits—and to enjoy doing so."
"A remarkable name for your organization, product, or service is like pornography: It’s hard to define, but you know it when you see it."
"If you hook me with a personal concern about my own dog, I can extrapolate this to the millions of other people who are concerned about their pets."
"No matter what you’re selling or who you’re selling it to, use plain words to describe what you do."
"Find unique language or offer scientific proof points, and don’t be tempted to think that you have the only product described with such overfamiliar adjectives as intuitive, secure, fast, and scalable."
"For agreement can yield many outcomes: management buy-in for developing a product or service, closing a sale, securing a partnership, recruiting an employee, or securing an investment."
"The ringing is caused by listening to thousands of lousy pitches."
"A business plan is of limited usefulness for a startup because entrepreneurs base so much of their plans on assumptions, 'visions,' and unknowns."
"With any luck, [writing a business plan] will help generate a strong, cohesive team."
"The writing of a plan uncovers holes in the founding team."
"All the late-night, back-o'-the-envelope, romantic intentions to change the world become tangible and debatable once they're put on paper."
"Your pitch is more important than your business plan, as it will determine whether you're rejected or generate further interest."
"A good executive summary is a concise and clear description of the problem you solve, how you solve it, your business model, and the underlying magic of your product or service."
"It is the most important part of your business plan because it will determine whether people read the rest of the document."
"Of the effort you put into writing a business plan, 80 percent should go into the executive summary."
"DO NOT EXCEED TWENTY PAGES IN LENGTH. The shorter the plan, the more likely it is to be read."
"Include the assumptions that drive your financial projections."
"Investors want deliberate plans because they want to invest in companies that supposedly know what they are doing."
"The worst thing to do is to write a deliberate plan and then stick to it simply because it is 'the plan.'"
"Startups need three kinds of A players: first, kamikazes who are willing to work eighty hours a week to achieve success; second, implementers who come in behind the first group and turn its work into infrastructure; third, operators who are perfectly happy running the infrastructure."
"You want smart people, not necessarily 'degreed' people."
"A team of people with major and diverse strengths is what your organization needs in the early days when headcount is low, and there’s no room for redundancy."
"Once you decide on a person, don’t hold anything back and use all your tools to hire him."
"Recruiting doesn’t stop when a candidate accepts your offer, nor when he resigns from his current employer, nor on his last day at his current employer—not even after he starts at your organization."
"If there’s one thing a CEO must do, it’s hire a management team that is better than he is."
"For many people, money isn’t the most important reward of a job."
"Sucking up to the boss is a big organization skill, while being the boss is a startup skill."
"Traction counts the most because you’ve demonstrated that people are willing to open their wallets, take out money, and put it in your pocket."
"Patents do not make a business defensible."
"If you can build a business, either investors will be fighting to give you money or you won’t need their money."
"If you do succeed in building a business, you won’t need their money."
"A moderate level of competition is a good thing because it validates the market."
"If you’re doing something good, five other organizations are doing the same thing. If you’re doing something great, ten are."
"Being a 'fast second' might be better—let someone else pioneer the concept, learn from their mistakes, and leapfrog them."
"The moment you take a dollar of outside money, you lose 'control.' Control has nothing to do with the math of voting shares."
"Getting a top-tier investor doesn’t guarantee that you’ll succeed."
"The investor who 'might' have said no is still watching what you do."
"Like Einstein, you should worry not about the money, but about where you are going."
"Persistence along these lines can pay off."
"An entrepreneur’s skin in the game, for a venture capitalist or an angel, is nice to have—not a necessity."
"If you want to be a world-class schmoozer, ensure that you’re hugely positive on the scoreboard."
"Stop going for the easy buck and start producing something with your life. Create, instead of living off the buying and selling of others."
"Sow many seeds. See what takes root and then blossoms. Nurture those markets."
"Ignore titles and find the true key influencers."
"Sucking up is vastly overrated—sucking up cannot work unless you first get through the phalanx of umbrellas, so read on to learn how to effectively suck down."
"Ignore atheists. Look instead for agnostics—people who don’t deny your religion and who are at least willing to consider the existence of your product or service."
"Let the prospect talk, to listen, and then to be flexible."
"Test driving is different for every business."
"A mensch does the right thing—not the easy thing, the expedient thing, the money-saving thing, or the I-can-get-away-with-it thing."
"Mensches joyfully provide these currencies to others."
"The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good."