Sam Altman is an American entrepreneur, programmer, venture capitalist and blogger. He is the president of Y Combinator, an American seed accelerator program that has been called as “the world’s most powerful start-up incubator” by Fast Company.
His quotes on entrepreneurship give a very unique perspective that can be really valuable to start-ups founders. In this article, we have selected around 20 of his quotes that we think Pakistani entrepreneurs must read and reflect over.
Idea
I myself used to believe ideas didn’t matter that much, but I’m very sure that’s wrong now
Remember that the idea will expand, and become more ambitious as you go
Wait to start a startup until you come up with an idea that you feel compelled to explore
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
We hear again and again from founders, that they wish they had waited to start a startup until they came up with an idea they really loved
The hardest part about coming up with great ideas, is that the best ideas, often look terrible at the beginning
These all sounded really bad, but they turned out to be good. If they had sounded really good, there would have been too many people working on them
Execution
Great execution is at least 10 times more important and a 100 times harder than a good idea…
Great execution towards a terrible idea will get you nowhere
Remember that you are more likely to die because you execute badly than get crushed by a competitor
Planning
Even though plans themselves are worthless, the exercise of planning is very valuable and totally missing in most startups today.
Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
You certainly don’t need to have everything figured out in the path from here to world domination.
In general don’t start a startup you’re not willing to work on for ten years
Mission
Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
A related advantage of mission oriented ideas, is that you yourself will be dedicated to them.
There’s no way I know, to get through the pain of a startup without belief that the mission really matters
A third advantage of mission oriented companies, is that people outside the company are more willing to help you.
Persistence
It takes years and years, usually a decade, to create a great startup.
If you don’t love and believe in what you’re building, you’re likely to give up at some point along the way.
Starting a business is like riding a wave between life and death. If you can hang on long enough, you’re bound to succeed
Startups are very hard no matter what you do; you may as well go after a big opportunity