huangv's quote bank

"Simply making decisions, one after another, can be a form of art" John Gruber

Complexity is your enemy. Any fool can make something complicated. It is hard to make something simple. Richard Branson

I wish I’d known that running a startup team is a lot like parenting. You check up on them, you wonder what they’re doing and you worry about them Skype-ing while driving. Often, you have to yell “Everybody calm down!” On some days, you have to remind them to buckle down and get their work done before dinner. On other days, you have to entertain them, so you take them to see movies and drive them to a go-karting arenas. As a startup founder, you want to help your team identify their strengths on the job and support them. You want them to make mistakes and learn from them, instead of shying away from them. You don’t dictate, you ask, “What do YOU think?” You’re sensitive to the ebb and flow in their moods, you know when they’re discouraged or frustrated. You get frustrated yourself, but you express it to them constructively. Above all, like any parent, you want them to be happy. Ok, AND successful.  Walter Chen ( @smalter ), CEO and co-founder of iDoneThis

The one thing I wish I knew before founding my first startup would have been how to set clear and measurable goals. The problem with any startup is that there are a million unknowns. As you go through the journey of creating your company, you try and answer as many of those questions as possible and once enough are answered, you know you have actually created something. Along the way, it is easy to get lost. To make sure you don’t, you need to be able to set clear goals and measure the success of your actions. If you see something isn’t working, it is imperative that you recognize it as soon as possible and fix the issue or change course quickly. Goals and metrics are the only way to do so. Blake Williams ( @blakewilliams ), Co-founder of Keepsy

Seek out the most critical opinions of your plan that you can find. The natural tendency for a first-time entrepreneur is to fall in love with an idea and then look for friends and colleagues to support it. After all, who wants to have a fledgling idea crushed by naysayers? But these are exactly the types of folks you should be looking for. Have them shred your plan and designs from top to bottom. If you find yourself agreeing with them and having doubts, then your plan (and possibly you) may not have the mettle to make it. But if you are able to defend it with conviction, repeatedly, then you probably have both the moxie to last through the long, tough grind you’re facing, as well as a plan that just might work. Dharmesh Shah ( @dharmesh ), Founder and CTO of  HubSpot

Efforts and courage are not enough without purpose and direction. John F. Kennedy

Most great companies start with a great idea, not a pivot … if you look at the track record of pivots, they don’t become big companies. Sam Altman

The world needs you to do it. If it’s not something the world needs, go do something the world needs. Dustin Moskovitz

It’s like surfing. The goal is to catch a big wave. If you think a big wave is coming, you paddle really hard. Sometimes there’s actually no wave, and that sucks.  But you can’t just wait to be sure there’s a wave before you start paddling. You’ll miss it entirely. You have to paddle early, and then let the wave catch you. The question is, how do you figure out when the next big wave is likely to come?  Peter Thiel

Innovation without execution is a hallucination.  I’m a techie, we all worship at the innovation alter. But I think execution is everything. John Doerr

Building a culture that can sustain the business is the most important investment you can make in your company. Once you've gotten a product into the market and proven product market fit, there is nothing that is more important than team, culture, and values. It is the glue that holds the whole thing together for the long haul. Fred Wilson

So if you want to build a business that lasts, you need a big and long vision and you need to be a leader who can inspire the team to believe in the vision and to believe in you. You need to hire folks who will stick around for the long haul and you need to be open to the doubts and doubters. But if they keep doubting, you need to part company with them. Don't hire mercanaries. They won't work no matter how hard you try. - Fred Wilson

When Paul Allen and I started Microsoft over 30 years ago, we had big dreams about software,” recalls Gates. “We had dreams about the impact it could have. We talked about a computer on every desk and in every home. Bill Gates

Companies are not people. But they are comprised of people. And the people side of the business is harder and way more complicated than building a product is. You have to start with culture, values, and a committment to creating a fantastic workplace. You can't fake these things. They have to come from the top. They are not bullshit. They are everything. There will be things that happen in the course of building a business that will challenge the belief in the leadership and the future of the company. If everyone is a mercenary and there is no shared culture and values, the team will blow apart. But if there is a meaningful culture that the entire team buys into, the team will stick together, double down, and get through those challenging situations. Fred Wilson

Companies are not people. But they are comprised of people. Fred Wilson