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.

You can win with the best product, the best price, or the best experience.

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

Stay focused and don't try to do too many things at once. Care about execution quality.

For most of the early hires you make in a startup, experience doesn't matter very much, and you should go for aptitude.

If you have several ideas that all seem pretty good, work on the one that you think about, when you're not trying to think about work.

Facebook has this famous poster that says move fast and break things. But at the same time they manage to be obsessed with quality.