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So it takes years to make a solid company.

When I started in the business in 1999 and 2000, we had companies that were going public in two, three or four years.

If you don't operate it as a business, you aren't going to be around very long.

I could imagine, some number of years from now, starting my own company. But not yet. Not for a while.

You may grow very quickly the first two years and then watch the business decline, unless you really start selling product at any price range with various degrees of quality.

At Square, we got our tech up and running in three weeks, but it took us 18 months to get licenses, banking relationships and everything else we needed to be able to move money. We had to partner up with major companies to do it.

It often takes a couple of years to get a script right and then takes a couple of years to get financing together.

Government technology processes are mind-boggling long and complicated. A procurement process alone is typically two years, and that doesn't account for the time required to actually build the product.

You can't go into business thinking that success will come to you in just one or two years.

In a start-up company, you basically throw out all assumptions every three weeks.