“In Silicon Valley, people are looking for a silver bullet. … I look at it like a Midwesterner: I have an ax and I’m going to cut down a tree. You close the first customer, then the second, then the third. It’s hard work, but that’s the way you do it.”
- Ben Milne, CEO and Co-Founder of Dwolla
“Maybe some percentage that’s substantially larger than 95 percent of VCs add zero value. I would bet that 70-80 percent add negative value to a startup in their advising.”
- Vinod Khosla, founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures
If your true purpose involves making a real difference in the world, find a meaningful problem and approach it head on. Optimize for it. If you’re spending a good chunk of your energy optimizing for other things (e.g. money or status), or if there’s a persistent knot in your stomach, then reconsider your purpose. If you find yourself becoming repeatedly distracted by success metrics that are not well aligned with what you’re telling yourself you want in life, it is time to stop and think.
Comic by internet humorist Drew
“Yes, some things…are sacred, but if you let go of those chains, new and wonderful things can happen. Those things you hold so dear cannot change and grow and expand unless you loosen your grip on them a little. … if you have a preconceived notion of how something should be, you will always be disappointed. Instead, just go with it, just accept it, because usually something even more wonderful will come out of it.”
- Mica Angela Hendricks, illustrator and graphic artist
Communicating well with your colleagues is critical to success. The implications of a lack of fluent exchange can be subtle at first, but if you find yourself exhausted from translating you should have cut your losses long ago. Being able to finish each other’s sentences may be an indication of too much uniformity, but you shouldn’t have to measure every word to make sure you’re understood. Team misalignment is far more than a waste of time; it can easily kill a venture.
“Make sure you are speaking the same language. Research to one partner might mean 30 minutes of light skimming on the Web, while research to another is three hours of intense reference-checking and phone calls. In other words, make sure that you not only want the same things, but also that the meaning of those things is the same.”
- Kim Kaupe, Co-founder of ‘Zinepak
“You have to wallow in it…. Take time to get to know people. Understand where they are coming from, what is important to them. Make sure they are with you.”
- Jack Welch, former GE Chairman and CEO (as quoted by Beth Comstock, GE CMO)
