A related advantage of mission oriented ideas, is that you yourself will be dedicated to them.

Be suspicious of any work that is not building product or getting customers. It's easy to get sucked into an infrastructure rewrite death spiral.

The most common post YC failure case for the companies we fund, is they're incredibly focussed during YC on their company... and after they start doing a lot of other things. They advise companies, they go to conferences, whatever.

In addition to relentlessly resourceful, you want a tough and a calm cofounder.

You can basically change everything in a startup but the market.

If you don't need it yourself, and you're building something that someone else needs, realize you're at a big disadvantage.

Whatever the founder cares about, whatever the founders think are the key goals, that's going to be what the whole company focusses on.