The key thing is to invest in the future and what that means is when you're deploying technology or you're a technology business, is to make sure that you're keeping on the innovation cycle, where you're both creating and adopting the new business practices, and the new techniques in order to drive your business the right way.

One of the challenges in networking is everybody thinks it's making cold calls to strangers. Actually, it's the people who already have strong trust relationships with you, who know you're dedicated, smart, a team player, who can help you.

Probably the biggest mistake that I made personally is I knew early on that I wanted to go into start-ups and creating kind of software that could help change the lives of millions of people. And basically what I did is I kind of went, okay, well, I need a set of titles and I need a checklist of skills, and I ran through all that, and that wasn't a useless thing, but what I didn't realize, and, you know, and no one gave me the right advice for doing this, is that actually your network, in essentially, is your career.

Boom and bust cycles are very difficult for businesses because you're hiring a bunch because you're planning for the future. And if the future is going to be very big, you need to hire people, or suddenly you go to boom to bust, then all of a sudden, you're kind of battening down the hatches and trying to sail, you know, through the storm, it's a different thing. So part of it is making good decisions about, well, how long is a boom cycle going to be, you know, don't plan on it going forever.

You jump off a cliff and you assemble an airplane on the way down.

Not only CAN anyone be an entrepreneur, but they MUST be.

Opportunities do not float like clouds in the sky. They're attached to people. If you're looking for an opportunity, you're really looking for a person.