Start-ups make so many mistakes that the challenge to identify the root cause of a failure is tough. But believing in your own plan is probably the worst.

Lean thinking defines value as providing benefit to the customer; anything else is waste.

Sustainable growth is characterized by one simple rule: New customers come from the actions of past customers.

There was a study done in the early 20th century of all the entrepreneurs who entered the automobile industry around the same time as Henry Ford; there were something like 500 automotive companies that got funded, had the internal combustion engine, had the technology, and had the vision. Sixty percent of them folded within a couple of years.

Vanity metrics are the numbers you want to publish on TechCrunch to make your competitors feel bad.

Here in Silicon Valley, I have taken part in hundreds of conversations trying to convince people to dive in and become entrepreneurs. All too often, innovators with good, safe, jobs are unwilling to put their family's access to health care at risk by walking away from company-backed medical insurance.

If we stopped wasting people's time, what would they do with it?