Once you cross the threshold of profitability, however low, your runway becomes infinite. - Paul Graham

Some of the most successful founders start out tentative and lukewarm. Especially the young ones, who are often far from certain they want to run a startup. As they should be, because it's not for everyone, and they don't know yet what they like.

It's a good sign when you cautiously suggest some ridiculously ambitious future plan to a startup, and discover they've already thought a lot about it.

The way to create something beautiful is often to make subtle tweaks to something that already exists, or to combine existing ideas in a slightly new way. This kind of work is hard to convey in a research paper.