Remember that you are more likely to die because you execute badly than get crushed by a competitor..

More important than starting any startup, is getting to know a lot of potential co-founders..

You can create value with breakthrough innovation, incremental refinement, or complex coordination. Great companies often do two of these. The very….

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..

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

As long as you keep doing the right thing and have the best product, you can beat the bigger company..

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

Aim to be the best in the world at whatever you do professionally. Even if you miss, you'll probably end up in a pretty good place..

Obsess about the quality of the product..

Execution gets divided into two key questions: 1) can you figure out what to do and 2) can you get it done..

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

Someday, you need to build a business that's difficult to replicate. This is an important part of a good idea..

In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need..

One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better..

Study the unusually successful people you know, and you will find them imbued with enthusiasm for their work which is contagious. Not only are they t….

The natural state of a start-up is to die; most start-ups require multiple miracles in their early days to escape this fate..

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

At YC we have this public phrase, and it's relentlessly resourceful..

When it comes to starting startups, in many ways, it's easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup..

It really is true that you become an average of the people you spend the most time with..

Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision..