No growth hack, brilliant marketing idea, or sales team can save you long term if you don't have a sufficiently good product.

Most founders have not managed people before, and they certainly haven't managed managers.

One thing that often disrupts momentum and really shouldn't is competitors.

The idea should come first, the startup should come second.

Later, you should learn to hire fast and scale up the company, but in the early days the goal should be not to hire. Not to hire.

Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.

You only get points when you make something the market wants. So if you work really hard on the wrong things, no one will care.