A Dozen Lessons for Entrepreneurs

“You know you have fit if your product grows exponentially with no marketing. That is only possible if you have huge word of mouth. Word of mouth is only possible if you have delighted your customer.”

“The two most important assumptions entrepreneurs make are what I call the value hypothesis and the growth hypothesis. The value hypothesis tests whether a product or service delivers value to customers once they are using it. The growth hypothesis tests how new customers will discover a product or service.”

“When I work with startups, the last thing I work with them on is marketing. I don’t want to overestimate marketing. Apple’s marketing has great products.”
Too many marketers believe advertising is what creates brands.

An innovative culture exists where the crazy guys have stature, where engineers are important.

Innovation comes through having great engineers, not great product-marketing guys.”

“The company that consistently makes and implements decisions rapidly gains a tremendous, often decisive, competitive advantage.”

The best time to found a business is often in a downturn since employees are easier to recruit, resources are less expensive, and competition is less intense.

Ignorance: Future states of the world are unknown, and probabilities are therefore not computable (a state of unknown unknowns).

Uncertainty: Future states of the world are known, but the probabilities of those future states are unknown (as with most things in life).

Risk: Future states of the world are known, and the probabilities of those future states are known (as in roulette).