Sam Altman & Dustin Moskovitz (link)

Components of a startup's success:

Idea * team * product * execution * luck = success

The great idea

• plans are worthless but the exercise of planning is very valuable
• The success of pivots is overestimated, ideas are very important
• Create a company that is difficult to replicate
• The passionate idea behind the startup should come first, the actual company should come second
• The best ideas often appear to be bad ideas at first — that is why no one is currently working on them
  • you want to be unpopular but right
• Think about a market that will be big in 10 years, go after a small market with high growth prospect
• You cannot create a market that doesn't want to exist — a market is the only thing you can't create in a startup
• Why now is a very important question — why hasn't this been done before?
• It is much easier to create a product that you also have a need for
• If it takes more than a sentence to explain what you're doing, it is too complicated
• Think about what the market wants first, then go from there

Product

• It's better to build something that a small number of users love than a large number of users like
• Focus on the customer and product at the beginning
• Great products market themselves organically through word of mouth