Daniel Lyons Quotes

Making a company fit to sell may be the only way to ensure you never need a buyer.

To be a designer today is to be an entrepreneur. Whether you're a two-man operation in Shoreditch or a 3,000-person, vertically integrated brand, you need to have the wherewithal to run your business through investment, considering everything from start-up funds to your exit plan or what it takes to go public.

The essence of good business is knowing when to step on a train and when to step off.

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.'

The Web is going to capture an increasing share of people's attention, and billions of dollars are going to flow in. What Web 2.0 is about is harnessing those dollars in highly leverageable ways.

I've had a very good stretch with startup investing, and I think it's very important to know when to hold your chips.

Investors like to invest based on traction, so it's always better to raise money when you've got more traction than less.

For better or worse, a lot of people who build things don't want to part ways. They don't have the short exit plan that a lot of the investors have.

I ran a profitable boostrapped company for five years, then raised $40 million from Andreessen Horowitz.

During the last years of university I started an online business with a couple of friends selling domain names - we started by cybersquatting and then we became a real business. Someone bought us after three years and we made a good deal.

I am retiring from startup investing. It's hard to leave all this behind right when things are going so well.

I often say Policy Planning is very analogous to a venture capital firm. A venture capital firm sees an interesting idea and puts money behind it; in Policy Planning, we look for promising ideas and then put contacts and relationships behind it.

Many entrepreneurs, and the venture investors who back them, seek to build billion-dollar companies.

It's worth noting that everything - from the Internet to electric cars, genomic sequencing, mobile apps, and social media - were pioneered by startups, not existing companies.

True innovation takes at least 10 to 15 years, whereas the longest that private venture capitalists are routinely willing to wait is five years. They don't join the game until all the riskiest plays have already been made - by governments.

I wouldn't say that I know a lot about 'Silicon Valley'. I live in Boston, for one thing. And I don't live and breathe this stuff the way most of the guys out there do.

Roblox is really heavily based on automated sorting of content in various ways - what's popular with monetizing, what's been most favorited, what's most retaining.

If you already have some amount of significant traction with customers, either in usage or in revenue, you should very quickly try and get that clearly out.

The only real way to success over time is a diversified economy.

New York is the new Silicon Valley.

Innovation means taking risks, and that is where the private sector can play a role.

Startup investing is one of my things, but it is not my everything.

I've been a business person for 30 years. I started my own companies; I've invested in others.

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

I meet young people all the time who say something like, 'I want to work in venture capital.' And I can see why. Who wouldn't want to be smart, well-paid, dispense large sums of money, and tell people what to do?