Better to have 100 users love you than 1 million that kinda like you. The true seed of scale is love, and you can’t buy it, hack it, or game it. Ask Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI and past president of Y Combinator, Silicon Valley’s legendary startup accelerator. He knows that a product that’s deeply loved — even by a tiny base of users — is one that can scale. Plus: an epic story of customer love from Chef Dominique Ansel, famed inventor of the Cronut.

In your company’s darkest moment, remember: You CAN pivot from failure to success. But only if you slash and burn everything that isn’t working. And then bring everyone else along. Slack’s Co-Founder and CEO Stewart Butterfield has twice navigated this kind of Big Pivot. He launched two different game companies, which turned into game-changing communications platforms (Flickr and Slack).

Think you’ve raised enough money for your startup? Think again. You’ll face a minefield of unexpected expenses — and opportunities. So raise more money than you think you need — possibly a lot more. MInted founder & CEO Mariam Naficy shares her white-knuckle experiences founding startups that survived two financial crashes – online cosmetic company Eve.com in the ’90s, and the design boutique Minted.com today.