Lean Thinking Defines Value As Providing Benefit

As An Entrepreneur, I Knew That If My Company Failed, I Could Always Try Again. So I Often Felt That The Only Real Risk Of True Financial Ruin Came From The Possibility Of A Serious Illness That Either Exceeded My Insurance Plans Lifetime Limits, Or Was Not Covered Due To Rescission.

If Your Goal Is To Make Money, Becoming An Entrepreneur Is A Sucker's Bet. Sure, Some Entrepreneurs Make A Lot Of Money, But If You Calculate The Amount Of Stress-inducing Work And Time It Takes And Multiply That By The Low Likelihood Of Success And Eventual Payoff, It Is Not A Great Way To Get Rich.

The Biggest Start-up Successes - From Henry Ford To Bill Gates To Mark Zuckerberg - Were Pioneered By People From Solidly Middle-class Backgrounds. These Founders Were Not Wealthy When They Began. They Were Hungry For Success, But Knew They Had A Solid Support System To Fall Back On If They Failed.

Vanity Metrics Are The Numbers You Want To Publish On Techcrunch To Make Your Competitors Feel Bad.

We Must Learn What Customers Really Want, Not What They Say They Want Or What We Think They Should Want.