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

Science and vision are not opposites or even at odds. They need each other. I sometimes hear other startup folks say something along the lines of: 'If entrepreneurship was a science, then anyone could do it.' I'd like to point out that even science is a science, and still very few people can do it, let alone do it well.

Better to have bad news that's true than good news we made up

Because startups often accidentally build something nobody wants, it doesn’t matter much if they do it on time and on budget. The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build - the thing customers want and will pay for - as quickly as possible.

By the time that product is ready to be distributed widely, it will already have established customers.

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

Most phenomenal startup teams create businesses that ultimately fail. Why? They built something that nobody wanted.