Start-ups make so many mistakes that the challenge to identify the root cause of a failure is tough. But believing in your own plan is probably the worst.
Being an entrepreneur isn't easy, but it's even harder for minority and women-led companies.
It's much harder these days as a start-up to do physical devices.
When I first opened Milk Bar, I was also making desserts for the Momofuku restaurants. I will say that by day three or day four, I realized that operating a bakery was so different from operating a restaurant.
Acquiring customers at the start is one of the hardest things you'll ever experiences as an entrepreneur.
Running a start-up is like eating glass. You just start to like the taste of your own blood.
Any dispassionate observer would recognize that on Day One, a start-up has no customers, and unless the founder is a true domain expert, he or she can only guess about the customer, problem, and business model.
I tell founders all the time, 99.9 percent chance of failure.
Successful entrepreneurs develop products that inspire their passion. They have to. It's that passion that gets them through the long, arduous, uncertain and frightening early days of a start-up.
