“What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at fi...” — Paul Graham Quote

What I tell founders is not to sweat the business model too much at first. The most important task at first is to build something people want. If you don't do that, it won't matter how clever your business model is.

I get a lot of criticism for telling founders to focus first on making something great, instead of worrying about how to make money. And yet that is exactly what Google did. And Apple, for that matter. You'd think examples like that would be enough to convince people.

When Facebook first started, and it was just a social directory for undergrads at Harvard, it would have seemed like such a bad startup idea, like some student side project.

Like having a child, running a startup is the sort of experience that's hard to imagine unless you've done it yourself.

The future of TOMS is really creating a whole new business model of this one-for-one giving and expanding the TOMS model from shoes into other products as well.

Not long ago, the term 'business model' was not exactly on the tip of everyone's tongue. Then, in the early to mid-1990s, 'business model' became a catchphrase that described how a company makes money or saves money.

Madam C.J. Walker was the first person to devise and scale a business model that addressed the hair care and beauty needs of women of color while also challenging the myopic ideals of the beauty industry at that time.

The one thing I didn't do that was kind of controversial was go work for a daily paper, because I didn't like that kind of journalism, and I'm glad I didn't because that's the business model that's going totally extinct.