The Monk and the Riddle

Startups are unique animals. We take them pretty much for granted out here now, but they are still endeavors that require very different skills from the ones needed in established companies.

Anyone can sail with the wind to his back. Startups usually sail into a stiff wind, leaking like a sieve, in high seas, without food or water.

In the world of startups, angels invest in seed or early-stage deals, and with their money they lend a bit of advice. They pay for the privilege of helping the company.

Good entrepreneurs are passionate visionaries, usually with one or more exceptional talents, but rarely have they actually built a company from scratch.

It's not clear that being the first-mover will provide the rash of Internet startups a sustainable competitive advantage. Ultimately being right, or better positioned, may be more important than being first.

Deferred Life Plan: Step one: Do what you have to do. Then, eventually — Step two: Do what you want to do

Most business ideas do not find funding. Even the majority of those that are funded—that is, vetted by very smart people who think enough of the ideas to invest in them — ultimately fail.

It's the romance, not the finance that makes business worth pursuing.

Entrepreneurs, in my experience, don't like to be told they're wrong.

The business model can and should change over time, as the world changes.

Business conditions are forever changing. You need to reconsider your strategies and business models constantly and adjust them where necessary.

Business is about nothing if not people.

Silicon Valley veterans share a tacit understanding that what a startup needs isn't one CEO, but three —each at successive stages of the startup's development.

If you turn a visionary startup into an operating company too early, you throw out its birthright. It will never be as big, or as influential as it might otherwise be. It will be much harder, perhaps impossible, to expand the vision later, when performance is being measured, because then there's too much at stake.

Business failures are unfortunate but necessary steps in the search for those few huge successes.

If you're brilliant, 15 to 20 percent of the risk is removed. If you work twenty-four hours a day, another 15 to 20 percent of the risk is removed. The remaining 60 to 70 percent of business risk will be completely out of your control..

Work hard, work passionately, but apply your most precious asset — time — to what is most meaningful to you.

Time is the only resource that matters.