Customer First Approach to explore our idea for a dog-walking app: 1. Call or text three people right now who have dogs and ask them to pay you to walk their dog. 2. Turns out none of these dog owners have problems walking their dog. You discover their real problem is finding dog sitters when they’re traveling. 3. Ask for their next travel dates

Remember, you could be eleven noes away from making your first million, but if you stop at the tenth rejection, you will have failed.

The thing is, most people don’t ask for what they want. They wish for it, they make “suggestions” and drop hints, they hope. But the simple fact of business is that only by asking do you receive what you want. No ASK? No GET. That applies to every part of life. Seriously, every part.

The secret to my father’s mastery of selling in a language he barely spoke is one word: chutzpah. It’s the Yiddish word for moxie, nerve, audacity; it’s a determined, give-no-f*cks approach to life. When Israelis say you have chutzpah, they mean you know what you want and go for it. They mean you have endless tenacity. They mean you’ll do what it

So what’s the connection between all these random failures and the success we ultimately achieved? It’s clearly not our expertise. No, it’s because of our willingness to run small experiments. That we eventually succeeded is a byproduct of the fact that we just try more things, period. That’s what I call Creator’s Courage.

What is something everyone thinks is true—but you think is wrong? What is something nobody in your target market is talking about—but should be? What are the biggest mistakes people in your market are making—but are totally blind to?

Most people never pick up the phone, most people never ask. And that’s what separates, sometimes, the people that do things from the people that just dream about them. You gotta act. And you gotta be willing to fail. —Steve Jobs

Great entrepreneurs have great entrepreneurial communities. There’s no such thing as self-made. Everyone is team-made.

First, Listen. In this Listen step, your job is to get customers talking about their problem. Here are three questions that will help you in this process: What’s the most frustrating thing about what’s currently going on? How would having X make your life better? What do you think that X should cost?