Over the last ten years, technological advances have dramatically lowered the financial bar for starting a new company, but the courage bar for building a great company remains as high as it has ever been.

Startup CEOs should not play the odds. When you are building a company, you must believe there is an answer and you cannot pay attention to your odds of finding it. You just have to find it. It matters not whether your chances are nine in ten or one in a thousand; your task is the same.

When raising money, you want to look through the lens of 'What happens when things go wrong?'

The only thing that prepares you to run a company is running a company.

It's pretty clear that [customers] know what their budgets are now, and what they want to spend it on.

The right thing to do is to thank them for their work, let people know that they're moving on, and ... you don't really have to explain all their personal details. It's more important to leave them with their dignity... and let them go on to live another day. Remember, what you say at that meeting, that's their reputation.

As a company grows, communication becomes its biggest challenge.