Quote

Before product/market fit, your only job that matters is to build a great product.

Sam Altman

Change background

T
T
T

Change font

TAGS & TOPICS

Sam Altman
Age: 39
Born: 1985
Born: April 22
Entrepreneur
Chicago
Illinois
Samuel H. Altman
Samuel Altman
Market
Build
Products
Jobs
Matter
Great
Product
Fit
Matters

More quotes by Sam Altman

Image
The best ideas often look terrible at the beginning the truly good ideas, don't seem like they're worth stealing.
Sam Altman
Image
Don't let the company get distracted or excited about other things. A common mistake is that companies get excited by their own PR.
Sam Altman
Image
The role of the board is advice and consent. If the CEO does not lay out a clear strategy and tries to get the board to set one, it will usually end in disaster.
Sam Altman
Image
... the thing we see wrong with YC apps most frequently, is that people have not thought about the market first and what people want first.
Sam Altman
Image
One thing I tell startups all the time is that the best way to grow is to make their product better.
Sam Altman
Image
The most important thing is that there is clear reporting structure and everyone knows what it is.
Sam Altman
Image
One thing that founders always underestimate is how hard it is to recruit.
Sam Altman
Image
I think as a rough estimate, you should aim to give about 10% of the company to the first 10 employees.
Sam Altman
Image
... for the top twenty most valuable YC companies, all of them have at least two founders.
Sam Altman
Image
You need to have a culture where people have very high quality standards in everything the company does, but still move quickly.
Sam Altman
Image
Most investors are obsessed with the market size today and they don't think about how the market is going to evolve.
Sam Altman
Image
Long term thinking is so rare anywhere, but especially in startups. This is a huge advantage if you do it.
Sam Altman
Image
The thing that kills startups at some level, is the founders giving up.
Sam Altman
Image
In YC's case, the number one cause of early death for startups is cofounder blowups.
Sam Altman
Image
I really believe that the single hardest thing in business is building a company that does repeatable innovation... and just has this ongoing culture of excellence as it grows.
Sam Altman
Image
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.
Sam Altman
Image
Founders need to figure out what the message of the company is going to be.
Sam Altman
Image
... but actually it sucks to have a lot of employees, and you should be proud of how few employees you have.
Sam Altman
Image
Another way of looking at this, is that the best companies are almost always mission oriented.
Sam Altman
Image
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.
Sam Altman