DENNIS CROWLEY, FOURSQUARE

“Another quality that I think is important is being flexible-minded or open minded. I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a vision for your idea or your product, but you need to be open for changes.”

“If you’re not coming up with 10 ideas a day… that’s why I have this thing, if I’m not coming up, if I’m not filling up this page every single day, then my idea muscle will atrophy. And I started this in 2001 and I still do it every s...

“You don’t have to be the best, but you have to be dangerous. You have to learn just enough to be dangerous to build an idea, concept it and show it to the world and then it turns out there are lots of other people, including all 170 ...

“It’s not just about doing focus groups, it’s not just about double checking your vision, it really is about integrating this concept of testing our ideas rigorously throughout the product development process, throughout the marketing...

“Courage without genius might get you to where you need to go, but genius without courage almost certainly won’t.”

“If you don’t love it, you won’t make it through the long period of pain that is inevitable. So make sure that you take care of yourself during the process, make sure that you take care of your mental health, your physical health whil...

“So just go and do it, try, learn from it, you’ll fail at some things, that’s a learning experience that you need so that you can take that on to the next experience.

And don’t let people tell y...

“And so, when we’re coming up with ideas, we always ask ourselves, “What kind of new market is this creating?” and then also, “What part of my day and what problem is it solving?” And so I’ve gone as far as taking an entire catalogue ...

“Do Something you are very passionate about and don't try to chase what is kind of the hot passion of the day”

“You have to have an emotional investment in what you’re doing. If you don’t love what you’re doing, failure is pretty much guaranteed. Success is not guaranteed by any means, but failure is much more likely, if you don’t love what yo...

“This little idea explains why some organizations and some leaders are able to inspire where others aren’t. Every single person, every single organization on the planet knows what they do, 100%. But very, very few people or organizat...

“Don’t think about, “How do I get big fast?” That will happen if you actually build something super meaningful and super important. So don’t think about what is the quickest way to success, think about what is the best way to building...

“When it comes to changing the world, what I’ve learned from Steve Jobs is if you believe in a Macintosh, if you believe in iPhone, iPod, iPad, if you believe enough, then you will see it. So you need to foster the belief in what you ...

“If you don't love it, you're not having fun doing it ,you don't really love it,

you're gonna give up.”

“ A classic entrepreneurial impulse to hold the idea close to you and not go tell people, because oh, the idea is so special. That’s almost always a mistake, because your actual, real competitive advantage is not that you have this id...

“I half-jokingly with a lot of people said that my job is basically to be the assistant for the rest of the company. My job is to make sure that you have what you need, you have everything you need to kick ass, that’s my job. If you d...

“It’s very rewarding when you work on something you think is going to make a very big difference and yes, it’s a little bit harder, but I think the passion that one might bring with it brings so much more energy to that, that you’re m...

“So when we see a kid with a lemonade stand it’s different than when we see a vending machine selling lemonade, even if it’s exactly the same product. Because the story around it is what people are paying for.”

“Don’t necessarily think that you have to have the homerun and the huge Apple computer on your first start. I’ve spent a long time in my life with skills, just building little devices for fun, for fun is one of the key things. Because...

“Because when you’re trying to differentiate, when you’re trying to do something different, there’s going to be that gut moment, that gut sense, “Is this right? Is this not right?” If you’re not having doubt, you’re not pushing the bo...

“There are a lot of things that are outside of your control, a lot of external circumstances will determine the success of your idea, whether the market timing is right for this kind of service or whether the economy is right for your...

‘Constantly seek criticism. A well thought out critique of whatever you’re doing is as viable as gold and you should seek that from everyone you can, but particularly your friends.”

“If you’re not utilizing an online community, then you’re at a disadvantage to those who are. You can be asking online communities what they think about your ideas or if they have any advice with what you’re working on. Not only will ...

“There are a lot of people from whom we can learn a lot and I think the one piece of advice, don’t underestimate anyone you come across, whether they are a blue collar worker waiting for the bus or they’re the server or bar tender at ...

“Understand that naturally nobody is interested in your idea, the world couldn’t care less and you have to persuade them and you have to show that you’re the one person out there that can do it.”

“What you really need to do is think about what is the smallest possible test that I can run for this idea, for this concept, for this theory, get it out there and get customers using it. Because your customers are going to be the one...

“The definition of values is they’re the behaviours or principles that you religiously adhere to within your company. And when I say religious I mean that no amount of data will sway you from those principles. And the degree to which ...

“Most start-ups that fail do it ultimately because they did not make something that people wanted. They made something that they thought people would want, but they were either in denial about it, about whether it was actually any goo...

”One way to conceptualize what makes a good product, good engineering is part of it, good design is part of it, but really it’s, one way I think about at least, is maximizing the probability that someone shows up at the front door of ...

“You should find a great partner, no matter what it is that you’re doing, and you should look for someone who has very high intelligence, very high energy and very high integrity. And you need all three of those, you can’t compromise ...

“A company is simply a group of people and as a leader of people you have to be a great listener, you have to be a great motivator, you have to be very good at praising and looking for the best in people. People are no different from ...

“So many things go wrong when you’re starting a company and often I think people ask, “What mistakes should you avoid making?” And my answer to that question is, “Don’t even bother trying to avoid mistakes, because you’re going to mak...

“If you know exactly what you want to be, you need to spend as much time with people that are actually that already.”

“I think people that look for great ideas to make money aren’t nearly as successful as those who say, “Okay, what do I really love to do? What am I excited about? What I know something about? What’s interesting and compelling?”

“The hardest thing to do is start. You have all these ideas and everyone has an idea, but it’s really about executing the idea and building the idea and attracting other people to help you work on the idea. That is the biggest challen...

“I think when you are starting a new business, you don’t want to go after giant markets, you want to go after small markets and you want to take over those markets quickly.”

“I think you should be spending your money on teaching and sharing, and so that might mean hiring a writer perhaps instead of a marketing person. And start writing and start getting people to listen to what you’re saying. You can’t ta...

“There’s this expectation that you have to have in your mind, this sort of, “I’m going to change the world, make a dent in the universe” kind of ambition. But it’s actually okay early on to just kind of solve small problems in layers ...

“What this all comes down to is doing something exceptional for your users, whether it’s in community, whether it’s in connection or whether it’s in design. This is our big advantage as a startup, is that we can actually get away with...