— which has a market cap of $1.38 billion — disagrees. People who settle for "good enough" are worried about "killing momentum," when they should be focused on fully committing to the best idea they can possibly generate, Skates tells CNBC Make It.In 2011, Skates and his friend Curtis Liu created a voice recognition startup called Sonalight, which Skates describes as "a version of [Apple's] Siri before Siri even existed.
Yet behind the scenes, the co-founders weren't sold on their own idea — which was "pretty good," but not "the bestest best," Skates says. Rather than ride it out and enjoy "some OK success," he adds, the duo ditched the startup within a year to focus on Amplitude, which they built from Sonalight's custom-made analytics tools."I had to say 'No, this doesn't matter. We're going to go do something else instead,'" he adds.
It's timely advice: Entrepreneurship is on the rise in the U.S., and starting your own business is risky. Nearly one in five adults in the country — 19% — are either in the process of launching a new business or have started one within the past three-and-a-half years, according to a Global Entrepreneurship Monitor reportearlier this month by Babson College. That's a record pace, surpassing 16.5% from last year's report.
Rising interest in entrepreneurship doesn't change the fact that starting a new business is an uphill battle, for