Great execution is at least 10 times more important and a 100 times harder than a good idea.

Really dig into projects people have worked on and call references; that is another thing that first time founders like to skip.

... you can think about that for everyone you hire: will I bet the future of this company on this single hire? And that's a tough bar.

At the beginning, you should only hire when you have a desperate need to.

Companies that I've been very involved with, that have had a very bad first hire in the first 3 or so employees never recover from it.

It's better to have no cofounder than to have a bad cofounder, but it's still bad to be a solo founder.

Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.