I am fortunate to have led three tech start-ups with three successful exits. I received a lot of advice along the way from venture investors, co-founders, colleagues, competitors, customers and other tech entrepreneurs. I have always been fascinated by the success and failure stories of businesses in general, and tech start-ups in particular. What are the common factors that lead some to succeed while most fail? In this talk, we’ll explore the most important success factors, with a focus on the last decade of computer vision and edge AI start-ups. My own experiences as well what I have learned from others suggests that the most important success factors include a very clear understanding of the target customer and market need; a clear-eyed quantification of both the value that the solution brings to customers and its differentiation vs. competitors; a robust go-to-market strategy that can achieve repeatable and scalable growth; and a strong, diverse leadership team.