Ben Zifkin

The biggest overarching lie: being a founder is awesome. You know what? Being a founder generally isn't awesome — and when I say generally, I mean all the time.

I've learned in my old age now that you're most important when you're least important. My company runs way better without me than it does with me, which I think is the thing that I'm most proud of.

Quit blaming other people. There's a lack of seed capital here, there's a lack of growth capital here, corporations aren't buying our stuff, government's not buying our stuff, the talent here is too small of a pool. It's all true in many cases — but it's not up to them, it's up to us to be able to persevere through this stuff.