Betting all your funds on the belief that you know what consumers want and are willing to pay for is like jumping into a river to test its depth - you'll need a lot of luck to stay afloat. To have a truly successful product launch, the conversations with your customers must start long before you write your first line of code.

As a serial entrepreneur, angel investor and public company CEO, nothing irks me more than when a startup founder talks about wanting to cash in with an initial public offering.

Design is how you make your first impression with your consumers. Make sure it is a lasting one.

To effectively reach consumers in the new social environment, brand managers need to learn how to translate their budgets into the digital realm, which also means understanding the advantages that digital can provide over television advertising.

Some incubators, like Y Combinator and TechStars, were started by successful entrepreneurs wishing to help the next generation learn from their experiences. Other programs, such as Viterbi Startup Garage and Austin Technology Incubator, were created by universities to help young entrepreneurs bridge the knowledge gap from student to funded company.

Instead of focusing the traditional planning cycles where companies benchmark their businesses against existing competition, teams need to be developed to foster internal change and disruption. Self-disruption is akin to undergoing major surgery, but you are the one holding the scalpel.

Creating something that builds lasting value and changes the lives of millions of people requires forging a team that will work hard to overcome seemingly insurmountable obstacles, stand up to the pressures of fame and fortune, and stay true to the original vision long after others stop believing.

Instagram, Swiffer, and Nest had to compete with consumer habits and perceptions. Breakout products face competition from the formidable inertia powering the status quo.

Numerous studies, and my own experience as a serial entrepreneur, have proven that companies with a diverse management team provide greater financial returns to investors.

Big ideas developed in a vacuum are doomed from the start. Feedback is the essential tool for building and growing a successful company.

From the very first inkling of a concept, founders need to gather a target group of five to ten potential users to begin the feedback loop. We all think we know how the market will react to new ideas, but actual users live with the pros and cons of the existing market conditions every day. They are the market experts.

There is no better feeling than doing well while you are doing good. If you really want to meet the nicest, most caring people in your field, get involved with charity work. The thankless hours that go into planning charity dinners, running a carnival, and gathering donations for silent auctions are noticed and appreciated.

Targeted marketing delivers a lower customer acquisition cost and gets you to profitable growth faster. The goal is to quickly identify the costs associated with acquiring your most profitable segment of customers and the incremental value - if any - of going beyond your core.

It doesn't matter how good your product solution is if users don't enjoy or understand how to use it.

To thrive, all businesses must focus on the art of self-disruption. Rather than wait for the competition to steal your business, every founder and employee needs to be willing to cannibalize their existing revenue streams in order to create new ones. All disruption starts with introspection.

State funds, private equity, venture capital, and institutional lending all have their role in the lifecycle of a high tech startup, but angel capital is crucial for first-time entrepreneurs. Angel investors provide more than just cash; they bring years of expertise as both founders of businesses and as seasoned investors.

When Thomas and John Knoll launched Photoshop 1.0 in 1990, the software couldn't even handle color images. But their offerings got the startup noticed by Apple and Adobe, both of whom became key to the fledgling company's later success.

Onboarding starts with satisfying the most basic of Maslow's psychological needs: belonging. New hires shouldn't arrive to an empty cube and be forced to forage through corridors searching for a computer and the bare necessities of office life. A new hire isn't a surprise visitor from out of town. Plan for their arrival.

The very first thing I tell every intern on the first day is that their internship exists solely on their resume. As far as I am concerned, they are a full-time member of my team. For all the negative stereotypes about millennials, you would be astounded by how hard they work when they believe their contribution matters.

There is a huge difference between failing and failure. Failing is trying something that you learn doesn't work. Failure is throwing in the towel and giving up. True success comes from failing repeatedly and as quickly as possible, before your cash or your willpower runs out.

If you care about your product, you should care just as much about how you describe it.

When you write like everyone else and sound like everyone else and act like everyone else, you're saying, 'Our products are like everyone else's, too.'

If you could taste words, most corporate websites, brochures, and sales materials would remind you of stale, soggy rice cakes: nearly calorie free, devoid of nutrition, and completely unsatisfying.

Hiring people is like making friends. Pick good ones, and they'll enrich your life. Make bad choices, and they'll bring you down.