Reid Hoffman Quotes

If you're not embarrassed when you ship your first version, you waited too long.

I've long believed that if you're not embarrassed by your first product release, you've released too late.

I take a lean-startup approach: creating agile, interdisciplinary teams that get the minimum viable product to market as soon as possible. It's my job to be entrepreneur-in-residence, an internal change agent.

Get a minimum viable product out there, test it out, see how customers respond.

The lean startup method is not about cost, it is about speed.

The most frequently asked question I hear first-time entrepreneurs ask is, 'How do I know when to launch my product?' The answer, more often than not, should be: 'Now!'

As an entrepreneur you keep trying things, and I try everything. I try business ideas, on our website we test everything, iterate, iterate, iterate.

I've been good at product entrepreneuring.

The most important thing in startups is getting a product to market, as imperfect as it may be, and then iterating on it and continually making it better. A first rev of a site that has a few typos may not be perfect, but it was the start of something that I deeply believed in.

Apple Computer would not have reached its current peak of success if it had feared to roll the dice and launch products that didn't always hit the mark. In the mid-1990s, the company was considered washed up, Steve Jobs had departed, and a string of lackluster product launches unrelated to the company's core business.

The reality is the Lean Startup method is not about cost, it is about speed. Lean startups waste less money, because they use a disciplined approach to testing new products and ideas.

You've got to stay super focused on shipping product. There isn't a version two or three if there isn't a great version one.

Internet and mobile product development cycles are measured in months, not years. And the capital required to get a product built and into the market is less than $1 million. And the returns, when things work out, can be enormous.

Decades before we were able to articulate the value of 'getting out of the building' and the Lean Startup, the value in having skunk works controlling their own distribution was starkly evident.

'Bazillion Dollar Club' follows six struggling startups trying to get their products together.

Entrepreneurs need to start building today. The barrier to entry in tech is low, so start designing, start coding it, launch it, build prototypes, build a working version of it. The Internet has amazing powers of distribution. You can test your ideas. You can see if it works, if it doesn't work, whether it's fun, and whether you're sufficiently motivated. People who go into entrepreneurship to get rich aren't going to be happy. It’s the building of things that makes you happy. You have to enjoy the process whether you succeed or fail.

If you think you have a good idea, get into the marketplace as quickly as you can, using as little money as possible, and see what happens.

Revolutionary products don't fail because they are shipped too early. They fail because they aren't revised fast enough.

The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build-the thing customers want and will pay for-as quickly as possible. In other words, the Lean Startup is a new way of looking at the development of innovative new products that emphasizes fast iteration and customer insight, a huge vision, and great ambition, all at the same time.

A Start Up is an institution designed to thrive in the soil of extreme uncertainty

I think of entrepreneurship as a way of creating value.

Entrepreneurship is, in large part, about building something from nothing, which means creating a cause.

'How I Built This With Guy Raz' asks entrepreneurs to tell the story of how they made their name and, in some cases, their fortune. Whether they're in the business of selling burritos or dating apps, there's inevitably something you can learn from their stories.

I understand the highs and lows of building a global business from the ground and taking that initial product idea all the way to the market.

There is a premium on innovation and commercializing new ideas.