Sometimes people who discover a new kind of work know that they have. Other times they just do something so well that imitating them becomes a genre. - Paul Graham

It's a mistake to treat investors' reasons for rejecting you as a guide to what you need to focus on, for three separate reasons: (a) much of the time they're lying, (b) when they're not, they're often mistaken, and (c) fundraising is not the primary goal anyway.

If you're running a startup, sell to startups if you can. They don't have as much money, but they decide quickly, and even more importantly, they have a better influence on your product.

A lot of having taste about something is just caring about it enough to be honest with yourself, so that you can get past "I like what I like" to "Is this actually good?"