Economic Tough Times Are Great Times To

A Product Needs To Be Sufficiently Innovative To Distinguish Itself From The Pack, But Not So Forward Thinking As To Alienate The User.

What Great Founders Do Is Seek The Networks That Will Be Essential To Their Task... Usually It's Best To Have Two Or Three People On A Team Rather Than A Solo Founder.

Success...is No Longer A Simple Ascension Of Steps. You Need To Climb Sideways And Sometimes Down, And Sometimes You Need To Swing From The Jungle Gym And Establish Your Own Turf Somewhere Else On The Playground.

One Thing I Learned In '97, When I Thought The Right Time To Found A Company Was During A Swing-up, Is That It's Much Better To Start During An Economic Downturn. Partnerships Are Easier; Hiring Is Easier; And The Competition Starts Later.

If You Have To Conduct Layoffs, Which Is Always A Regrettable Thing, There's Kind Of Three Things That Are Very Important. One Is To Communicate Well With Your Employees In Order To Help Them Understand Why It Is You're Doing, And How. Second Is To Make Sure That The Employees Who Are Part Of The Go Forward, Understand Kind Of What Happened And Are Not Like The Ground Doesn't Keep Moving. It's Like, Okay, We Did That, We're Moving Forward, Here We Go. And Then For The Employees That You Unfortunately Have To Let Go, Try To Provide As Much Support For Them As Possible.