Fred Wilson Quotes

Investing in management means building communication systems, business processes, feedback, and routines that let you scale the business and team as efficiently as possible.

- Fred Wilson

Business, Processes, Means, Scale

All markets have boom and bust cycles, and I think venture capital market has even more exaggerated boom and bust cycles.

- Fred Wilson

Think, I Think, Capital, Exaggerated

I'm a free speech bigot. I don't like censorship; I just don't think it's a good thing.

- Fred Wilson

Think, Like, A Good Thing, Bigot

When people laugh at a company or say, 'This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,' you are listening.

- Fred Wilson

Listening, People, Say, Stupidest

Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase.

- Fred Wilson

Phase, Capital, Public, Capturing

We need new medical approaches to preventing and/or curing disease. We need new scientific approaches to generating, storing, and being more efficient with energy. Maybe we need more space exploration. Maybe we need more undersea exploration.

- Fred Wilson

Medical, New, Disease, Energy

New York's niche is content, and content is becoming more valuable. Just think about what is more valuable: MTV or the cable system that you use to get MTV? Howard Stern or the radio station you use to listen to him? Ultimately, technology becomes a commodity, and content - real, true branded content - becomes more valuable.

- Fred Wilson

Becoming, Use, Commodity, Branded

I'm not saying M.B.A.s can't be great entrepreneurs. They can. But you don't need a degree to figure out it's costing you $5,000 per month to run your business, so you need $30,000 to keep it going for six more months.

- Fred Wilson

Run, Your, Entrepreneurs, Costing

There are so many startups out there raising money. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's a good thing. Entrepreneurship is in vogue. Innovators are innovating. Makers are making.

- Fred Wilson

Think, Making, Raising, Startups

Startups are rapidly changing systems. If you use an annual review cycle, you aren't getting feedback at the same pace that you need to adapt and change the business.

- Fred Wilson

Business, Need, Use, Startups

Customers are a great way to finance a business for many reasons. First, customer financing is typically non dilutive. They want something from you other than equity in your business. Customers also help you fit your product to the market. And customers will help debug and improve the quality of the product.

- Fred Wilson

Other, Reasons, Great Way, Financing

The most common way customer financing is done is you sell the customer on the product before you've built it or before you've finished it. The customer puts up the money to build the product or finish the product and becomes your first customer. Usually the customer simply wants the product and nothing more.

- Fred Wilson

Common, Before, Your, Financing

It takes great salesmanship to convince a customer to buy something from you that isn't built or isn't finished.

- Fred Wilson

Convince, Buy, Built, Salesmanship

Venture capitalists are professional money managers. We are provided capital to invest as long as we can return it to our investors with a strong return in a reasonable amount of time. A strong return is three times cash on cash. A reasonable amount of time is ten years max.

- Fred Wilson

Strong, Capital, Amount, Capitalists

Yahoo is free, it's fast and it's Web-centric. AOL is slow, it costs money and requires proprietary software.

- Fred Wilson

Slow, Fast, Costs, Proprietary

My venture investing career has three phases, all roughly 6-8 years long. The first, at Euclid, was software to Internet. The second, at Flatiron, was Internet to bubble. And the third, at USV, has been web 2 to mobile. I have always used a new firm to denote a new investment phase for me. Throw away the old. Start with the new.

- Fred Wilson

Career, Away, Been, Roughly

One of the great things about young entrepreneurs is that they don't know that something can't be done. So they try something that's so audacious and usually end up pulling it off.

- Fred Wilson

Young, About, Entrepreneurs, Audacious

Facebook is not an unstoppable juggernaut. There are a lot of other things people can do on the web.

- Fred Wilson

Other, Web, Lot, Unstoppable

Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are all 'User First, Brands Second' services. The brands are all over these services now. But for the most part, these services didn't do much to bring them. The engaged users did.

- Fred Wilson

Over, Engaged, Brands, Tumblr

Building product is not about having a large team to manage. It is about having a small team with the right people on it.

- Fred Wilson

Small, Product, Having, Manage

Certainly anything that is news or opinion needs to be free on the Web, because the Web is this very fluid medium that is very much driven by links and the flow of visitors through a discussion via links.

- Fred Wilson

News, Through, Needs, Flow

The Web is going to capture an increasing share of people's attention, and billions of dollars are going to flow in. What Web 2.0 is about is harnessing those dollars in highly leverageable ways.

- Fred Wilson

Going, About, Billions, Flow

Blog-based businesses have lower cost structures and are more 'authentic,' and as a result are drawing larger shares of ad budgets.

- Fred Wilson

Cost, Larger, Ad, Businesses

Profiles aren't journalism.

- Fred Wilson

Profiles, Journalism

I would like to reiterate that I don't want any profiles of me. I am not newsworthy.

- Fred Wilson

I Am, Like, Would, Profiles

Politics and government have been a terrible place to invest; education has been a terrible place to invest, but that is because the entrenched interests make it a terrible place to invest. The way you invest in those sectors is you go against the entrenched interests; you try and disrupt the entrenched interests, not to service them.

- Fred Wilson

Politics, Been, Sectors, Disrupt

I generally blog between 5:30 A.M. and 7 A.M. I will from time to time add something during the day, but for the most part blogging is an early morning activity for me.

- Fred Wilson

Activity, Add, Blogging, From Time To Time

It's not easy for an entrepreneur to find the time to blog. But for those who do it, it is a great tool to communicate with the various stakeholders in their business and build a reputation for thought leadership.

- Fred Wilson

Business, Communicate, Entrepreneur

Being an entrepreneur is hard. Having supportive and caring investors helps.

- Fred Wilson

Caring, Supportive, Having, Entrepreneur

The entire world is now a rival to Silicon Valley. No country, state, region, nor city has a lock on innovation in technology anymore.

- Fred Wilson

Innovation, City, Country, Region

Board meetings should not be for the benefit of the board. They should be for the benefit of the CEO and the senior team.

- Fred Wilson

Meetings, Senior, Should, Board

So many folks in the venture capital business are sheep that just want to follow the herd. They are momentum investors purchasing highly illiquid investments. That is a recipe for disaster.

- Fred Wilson

Business, Want, Capital, Highly

I believe the mobile OS market will play out very similarly to Windows and Macintosh, with Android in the role of Windows. And so, if you want to be in front of the largest number of users, you need to be on Android.

- Fred Wilson

Play, Very, Largest, Macintosh

Skyping with your spouse works well enough, but apparently it is hard to get the kids to hang out on Skype for long.

- Fred Wilson

Hang, Your, Works, Skype

Games are the most social of all things on the web.

- Fred Wilson

Web, Social, Most, All Things

When I see people laughing at ideas and companies we have backed, I smile. It means we are going to make a lot of money on that investment.

- Fred Wilson

Going, Means, Backed, Laughing

If you have a native monetization system where the atomic unit of content is the ad unit, that scales down all the way to a small screen experience. That's why Twitter is performing so well on mobile.

- Fred Wilson

Small, Performing, Ad, Scales

I'm really interested in the intersection between reputation, identity, and knowledge.

- Fred Wilson

Identity, Reputation, Intersection

The venture business is a bit of an apprenticeship business, so the firm I worked for didn't let me make an investment until I was 30. That was probably a very smart thing.

- Fred Wilson

Business, Investment, Very, Apprenticeship

Foursquare's adoption of a game dynamic when it launched is a particularly clever implementation of a social hook.

- Fred Wilson

Game, Particularly, Hook, Adoption

Many artists stick to making and hire a manager to focus on their business. Artists that build websites and mobile apps can do that, too.

- Fred Wilson

Manager, Hire, Making, Websites

To see things differently requires you to be wired a little differently.

- Fred Wilson

See, Differently, Wired, Requires

Internet and mobile product development cycles are measured in months, not years. And the capital required to get a product built and into the market is less than $1 million. And the returns, when things work out, can be enormous.

- Fred Wilson

Measured, Capital, Cycles, Returns

Equity capital is expensive. Every time you do a raise, you dilute.

- Fred Wilson

Time, Capital, Raise, Equity

The companies that do the best job on managing a user's privacy will be the companies that ultimately are the most successful.

- Fred Wilson

Will, Most, Companies, Successful

I don't like to talk about myself. I like to talk about stuff that's happening, stuff that's going to happen, and the people who are going to make it happen.

- Fred Wilson

Happen, Like, Going, Happening

When there were not very many Internet companies, the supply of Internet companies to the market was small and the appetite for them was large. Therefore, if you were in the business of creating Internet companies in 1996-98, you had a market that provided massive demand for that.

- Fred Wilson

Small, Very, Large, Appetite

When my dad was in Vietnam, we lost a parent for a year. Thank God we didn't lose a parent for good.

- Fred Wilson

Parent, Year, Dad, Vietnam

Most adults I know start their Internet session at Google, and most kids I know start their Internet session at either Facebook or MySpace.

- Fred Wilson

Start, Facebook, Session, Adult

The best talent in the venture industry doesn't work in large companies and won't work in large companies.

- Fred Wilson

Work, Companies, Large, Venture

It's upsetting to me that you have to be a millionaire to invest in your friend's start-up.

- Fred Wilson

Me, Millionaire, Invest, Upsetting

Given New York City's cultural diversity, it has always attracted creative people.

- Fred Wilson

New, Always, Given, York

The Internet is a computing platform built on top of core technology. Applied technology is what gets built on top of that: It's Web services.

- Fred Wilson

Top, Computing, Built, Core

There is a difference between hiring a CEO and turning over control of the business.

- Fred Wilson

Business, Over, Hiring, Turning

People already love to play casual games. But when you take a casual game and stick it inside a social network, it becomes way more exciting.

- Fred Wilson

Love, Game, Play, Casual

Twitter wasn't planned. It just happened.

- Fred Wilson

Planned, Just, Happened, Twitter

I think 'crazy' is a compliment. I think you make money with people who are crazy.

- Fred Wilson

Money, Think, I Think, Compliment

If you are successful, you will be cloned. That's life. In fact, it's a sign that you've made it when clones of your website, mobile app, and business start cropping up.

- Fred Wilson

Business, Fact, App, Website

I believe Android will be stronger in the developing world than it is in the developed world.

- Fred Wilson

Stronger, World, Will, Android

Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.

- Fred Wilson

Marketing, Who, Companies, Products

Start-ups should be hunch-driven early on and data-driven as they scale.

- Fred Wilson

Early, Should, Scale

The more entrepreneurs in the world that are getting their ideas financed, the more great companies there are going to be that we can all invest in.

- Fred Wilson

More, Going, Invest, Entrepreneurs

Money is information, like bits.

- Fred Wilson

Money, Information, Like, Bits

Not only do you have to put yourself in harms way in service of your country, you have to leave your families at home. It is a great sacrifice.

- Fred Wilson

Country, Your, Families, Sacrifice

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