Contemporary · Startup Fundamentals · Essay

You're Probably Too Early

Marc Andreessen (via The Startup Archive) · 2026

"Founders are far more likely to fail from being too early — building the right idea before the infrastructure or market is ready — than from being too late, which means a founder's own sense of 'someone must already be doing this' is a poor signal to act on."

The idea

"The great founders almost always feel like they're too late, and you're almost always too early." — Marc Andreessen.

Why it works

The takeaway — recall it first

Distribution Follows a Power Law

"Most startups fail from poor distribution, not a bad product — and since distribution channels themselves follow a power law, the winning strategy is to find and dominate a single channel rather than spreading thin across several mediocre ones."

Peter Thiel · Book excerptContinue→