Venture Hacks

Some recent highlights from our Twitter (RSS) and FriendFeed (RSS):

“Some of the ways I’ve learned to estimate whether a team will be successful is how high-impact their project is, but also 1) how quickly they can iterate and 2) how they react to feedback.” – Matt Cutts, Google

“Firms should not pay high executive salaries merely to find leaders who can copy what others are doing.” – Jeffrey Pfeffer, Stanford Graduate School of Business

“Lean startups are built from the ground up for learning about customers.” – Eric Ries, Kleiner Perkins

“Consider spending less time talking, and more time prototyping, especially if you’re not very good at talking.” – Paul Buchheit, FriendFeed

[Could you build a portfolio of consistently successful startups? Allen C. Ward could just as well be talking about startups and their investors in this quote.] “Toyota and its suppliers have consistently successful projects. They analyze the few defective projects to improve the system. Morale is high and chaos low because projects consistently go right. In contrast, most conventional projects have serious problems and an occasional home run keeps the company afloat. Fire fighting is standard. It is hard to tell who is doing a good job and hard even to tell what the causes of the problems are. Waves of disruption run through the company, as projects are canceled, run over budget or schedule, or must be expedited to make up for failures elsewhere. Everyone is worried all the time.” – Allen C. Ward

“Contentment is wanting what you have. Ambition is wanting what another has. Progress comes from wanting what nobody has.” – Bob Lewis

“That’s another flaw with performance-based rewards: They are easy for one of your competitors to top.” – Joel Spolsky

“The idea of a company that’s earning money, not losing money, that’s not, let’s say ‘industrially endangered,’ to have just cutbacks so they can earn another $12 million or $20 million or $40 million in a year where no one’s counting is really a horrible act when you think about it on every level. First of all, it’s certainly not necessary. It’s doing it at the worst time. It’s throwing people out to a larger, what is inevitably a larger unemployment heap for frankly no good reason.” – Barry Diller, IAC [See these creative ways to avoid layoffs.]

“Forget about shortcuts. Run a business as if it’s forever.” – Norm Brodsky

“A business plan that doesn’t require a wonderful economic environment in order to succeed… is a good idea all the time.” – Marc Andreessen

“Entrepreneurs get blinded by firm reputations… they don’t do their due diligence on partners.” – via Jeff Bussgang, Flybridge Capital Partners

“Asking customers to adopt new priorities… is an uphill death march through knee-deep mud.” – Clayton Christensen, Harvard Business School

“I’ve learned… that there is a lot more hidden talent and potential in your employees than you think.” – Tony Hsieh, Zappos

“Most business practices repress our natural tendency to have fun and socialize.” – George Zimmer, Men’s Wearhouse

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