You want an idea that turns into a monopoly. But you can't get a monopoly, in a big market right away; too much competition for that.

At YC we have this public phrase, and it's relentlessly resourceful.

The natural state of a start-up is to die; most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate.

Because so few people make an actual long term commitment to what they're building, the ones that do have a huge advantage.

Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.

If it works out, you're going to be working on this for 10 years.

... and you can only have 2 or 3 things everyday, because everything else will just come at you; you know fires in a day.