Jay Marcyes

Some nice thoughts:

You can't do it alone; be open to collaboration, other people's ideas are often better than your own. Find a group of people who challenge and inspire you, and it will change your life. No one is here today because they did it on their own, you are all here today because someone gave you strength, helped you, held you in the palm of their hand. They helped you get here and that should make you feel less alone and less scared. It's much more fun to succeed with other people because you can blame them when things go wrong.

And some other random tidbits:

The answer to a lot of your questions is often in someone else's face.

Limit your "always" and your "nevers"

Even though you are smart, you are still allowed to say, I don't know.

When you feel scared, hold someone's hand and look into their eyes, and when you feel brave, do the same thing

The best quotes comes from part 1, about 8:30 in, on failure:

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena where I believed I truly belonged, I was set free. I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became a solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life. [...] Some failure in life is inevitable, It is impossible to live without failing at something unless you lived so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all. In which case, you fail by default.

I took out 2 key points from the presentation.

On listening to your customers but being able to say no:

Saying yes is the worst thing you can do, the number one power you have running your own business is being able to say no. We hear time and time again how the most important thing is to listen to your customers. That's true, you should certainly listen, and then you can say no. It doesn't come that just because you are listening, you have to say yes. That is not how the relationship works, because if you are just going to automatically say yes, why bothering listening in the first place? Saying no is my most treasured power as an entrepreneur running my own ship, I cannot remember a single thing that I said no to that I regret, but I remember things I said yes to that I regret. (~11 mins)

On asking yourself if your product is viable:

Just having a great idea is not enough, it needs to be married with someone that wants to pay you for your implementation. The best way to figure out if there is a business, is to ask yourself if you would pay for it. Because if you wouldn't pay for it, who would? (~22:30 mins)

The whole presentation has an overall KISS (keep it simple stupid) vibe to it, so maybe it should be watched with Venturehack's minimum viable product.