Your only super power as an entrepreneur in the early days is your ability to learn more quickly than anyone around you.
Quote from Tao Tao, co-founder and COO of GetYourGuide, in an article on PhocusWire this week.
Surveying the travel startup landscape, part 2: Front line tips from the founders
A startup often talks about how it will use a funding round to "supercharge" efforts to develop its technology, hire talent or create innovate marketing techniques.
The rhetoric continues - founders and startup employees are sometimes heralded as being super-human in their ability to work long hours and show valiant levels of commitment to get a business up and running, and then attempt to challenge the status quo.
Beyond the verbiage though, there is an element to the "super power" tag that is applied to running a startup, which Tao Tao references.
But perhaps he's wrong when he says the only relevant super power is one that revolves around being faster than others to learn the ropes.
D.C. or Marvel character-type skills are required in many other areas, not least at the sharp end of understanding and using technology and digital marketing to keep ahead of the competition.
The winners in the battle to bring private accommodation to the mainstream did not get where they are today by their ability to learn the sector quicker than others doing the same.
This is true because there were other brands that had been operating in the sector for many years before - they just hadn't applied some super powers of their own in other areas.
Successful startups in other sectors have demonstrated an ability to out-think and act faster than their peers beyond, through partnering with the right organizations and companies at the right time.
Raising money can also require skills persuasive and organizational skills that would surely impress the likes of a business leader such as Tony Stark (aka Iron Man).
The flip side to all this is that such prowess is not exclusive to startups - it can require similar "powers" to run an established business.
And, lest we forget, many of these companies are literally - to continue the action film tone - crushing those newbies that come before them.