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Everyone starting a startup for the first time is scared, and everyone feels like a bit of an imposter.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Feels
Time
Imposter
Like
Scared
Starting
Bits
Everyone
Firsts
First

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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.
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If you compromise in the first five, ten hires it might kill the company.
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The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
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Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.
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The hard part is that this is a very fine line. There's right on one side of it, and crazy on the other.
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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.
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A single mediocre hire in the first five will often in fact kill a startup.
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The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.
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AirBnB spent 5 months interviewing their first employee, before they hired someone and in their first year, they only hired 2 people.
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You think you have this great idea that everyone's going to come join, but that's not how it works.
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In general though, if you look at the track record of pivots, they don't become big companies.
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If you want something in a deal, just ask for it.
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It's easy to move fast or be obsessed with quality, but the trick is you have to do both at a startup.
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If you compromise and hire someone mediocre you will always regret it.
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You need conviction in your own beliefs, and the willingness to ignore others naysaying.
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One thing that founders forget is that after they hire employees, they have to retain them.
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Mediocre founders spend a lot of time talking about grand plans, but they never quite make a decision.
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... you want to be proud of how much you can get done with a small numbers of employees.
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As the company grows and about this 25 or so employee size, your main job shifts from building a great product to building a great company.
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