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The thing about startups is you can make it, and if it's wrong you can remake it, and you can build a team that you want to have, a product that you want to have. You're utterly focused on your users or your customers and their needs, and trying to figure out how to meet those needs.

Startups have finite time and resources to find product/market fit before they run out of money. Therefore startups trade off certainty for speed, adopting 'good enough decision making' and iterating and pivoting as they fail, learn, and discover their business model.

Launching a successful product or startup has little to do with luck. Any business that gains traction on the market is the result of very careful strategizing and market analysis, not to mention the development of an original product or service.

A startup is not just about the idea: it's about testing and then implementing the idea. A founding team without these skills is likely dead on arrival.

Never expect that your startup can cover every aspect of the market. The key is knowing what segment will respond to your unique offering. Who your product appeals to is just as important as the product itself.

Startups are often very undercapitalised, but I found that to be very beneficial because it forces you not to throw money at problems. Instead, you learn all the nuts and bolts of what you're doing and become an expert.

It's so important for startups to get their culture right at the start. They need to feel unique and that they are on their own important mission in the world.

Working on a startup is a balancing act: being crazy enough to believe your idea can take off but not crazy enough to miss the signs when it's clearly not going to.

The grim reality is that most start-ups fail. Most new products are not successful. Yet the story of perseverance, creative genius, and hard work persists.

Great companies start because the founders want to change the world... not make a fast buck.