What's Different about "Unicorns"

Jessica Livingston · 29 Jun 2017

Others here said this too

A great idea and good execution are not enough for a business to succeed; timing also has to be right.

Their wordsThe most successful founders have the right idea at the right time. And you have less control over that than you might think, because the best ideas are not deliberate: they tend to grow organically out of the founders' lives.

Also said by Boris Cherny

Read the piece on foundersatwork.posthaven.com ↗

3 korrents from this piece ↓

Jessica Livingston did not write this page.

Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
A great idea and good execution are not enough for a business to succeed; timing also has to be right.

Their wordsThe most successful founders have the right idea at the right time. And you have less control over that than you might think, because the best ideas are not deliberate: they tend to grow organically out of the founders' lives.
Our reading
The best startups often look like unpromising or bad ideas at first.

Their wordsAlmost all the really big startups seem like dubious ideas at first.
Our reading
Building great products and managing people require very different skills.

Their wordsDesigning cool products and managing people are very different things.

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