Jack Dorsey.
While I don't have the official stats, I would take a wild guess that far more Silicon Valley web startups fail than succeed.
So when the cofounder of two of the most successful of these web startups speaks, then it's probably a good idea to listen.
In this case, it's Twitter and Square co-founder Jack Dorsey who's doing the talking.
Jack currently serves as CEO of Square, and many would like to see him take the reins of Twitter.
Check out his success habits and see if they can’t make you more successful.
1. Start with an idea
Says Dorsey, "It doesn't start by you waking up and saying 'I want to start a business,' it starts by you waking up and saying 'I'm really passionate about this thing and I'm going to do whatever it takes to make it work.'"
2. Keep a diary
"Find a simple way way to track your progress,” says Jack. “You really get to see how you have grown, how your business has grown and how your own leadership has grown."
3. Build a transparent company
"We get all these new, diverse perspectives, and it makes people think in different ways, and that creates a lot more creativity in the organization. Making sure that everyone sees that has been the most transformative for us."
4. Communication and cooperation are key
According to Dorsey, "If you have two departments that are not talking, if you have two people who just can't get along, that friction will manifest in the product itself, and your customers will see that friction. You are putting your company's issues before your customers, which is just rude and selfish. We make sure we design and engineer the company and the organization as much as we do the product and the service we have built."
5. Sometimes it's OK to break the rules
According to Jack, his father started a pizza business with a friend when he was 19 years old. "The first person they hired was my mother. My father fell in love with her, and he went to his best friend a week later and said 'I broke the rules, I fell in love with Marcia, the business is yours.' I was born 10 months after that."
