Startup Risks Quotes

Entrepreneurs should never work with big corporations.

Every time you start a company - and I've started five or six - you have the opportunity to screw up in whole new ways.

The world is a big place. There are lots of smart people in it. Entrepreneurs are kidding themselves if they think they have any kind of monopoly on knowledge. And, sure as I'm a Macintosh user, on the same day that an entrepreneur tells this lie, the venture capitalist will have met with another company that's doing the same thing.

First and deadliest of all is a founder's unwavering belief that he or she understands who the customers will be, what they need, and how to sell it to them.

I think extreme secrecy is a bad sign in all startups. Very few startups die because they tell you exactly how their technology works. On the long list of startup killers, that's pretty far down. Though on the list of entrepreneur fears, it's pretty high.

Really dig into projects people have worked on and call references; that is another thing that first time founders like to skip.

Beware angel investors: they can be disruptive.

When I read about young designers selling 51 percent of their company to someone else, I cringe. I want to say, 'Don't do it - call me first.'

One of the things that's so interesting when talking to minority founders specifically is that there is really a knowledge gap in understanding what the risk-reward profile is for doing a startup.

The two big startup killers are when there's just no market for what you are doing, and team problems.