Be cautious about your initial market size estimates; transformational technologies often reveal unforeseen use cases that can significantly expand the market once a superior product is built.

Successful startups often emerge from side projects that were not initially intended to be businesses, as seen with companies like Twitter.

The initial market for Facebook was just 10,000 people at Harvard, but it quickly gained a significant market share, demonstrating the potential of small markets.

Investors often overlook the potential of existing large markets, thinking they are too crowded, but if you can create a significantly better product, there's room for many winners.

For a startup to be successful, it often has to be something that larger companies would dismiss as unimportant or stupid, as they wouldn't overlook obvious opportunities.

Successful companies often start with small markets and expand over time; going after a large market from the beginning usually indicates a lack of proper market definition.

The startup ecosystem is mixed in identifying contrarian opportunities; sometimes it recognizes them, but often it struggles to see potential markets until they become popular.

Many founders and investors initially dismissed the ideas behind Airbnb, Coinbase, and Stripe as poor or overly ambitious, underestimating their potential.

We learned that using traditional VC thinking to gauge market size can be misleading; instead, we focused on user needs and market trends.