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What I'd tell myself about startups if I could go backfive years?
Original post written by: Ben Dixon also @talkingquickly Catch up with him at http://www.talkingquickly.co.uk/
You're definitely going to end up
building too much and shipping too late.
Be obsessive about avoiding this
Like it or not, most networking in London
is focused around drinking. Find a way to
deal with that without having a constant
hangover
It's really easy to kid yourself that you're
"doing customer development" when
actually you're finding ways to make what
your customers are saying fit with what
you want to build
It's really easy to become hyper-critical
and respond to every idea with "yeah but
that won't work because of x". This is
lazy, don't do it.
Be especially careful to avoid the above
when talking to people who are new to
the scene. Call out other people who do it
It's really hard to listen to someone
pitching an idea you've seen fail several
times already and focus on working out if
there's something slightly different and
interesting there
Someone being a technically competent
developer does not mean they know how
to ship things. I'd always rather work with
someone who ships over someone who's
technically brilliant
The programming language/
framework wars are great fun in the
pub, but of limited value in real life
Constantly exaggerating how well
you're doing can be very tiring. It
makes it harder to publicly celebrate
the real victories
It's really hard to build a product if you
don't have a big personal investment in
the problem it solves
You can get away without knowing how
a hash table works, but it's really
satisfying when you eventually learn it
If you don't have first hand experience
of an industry, you're probably wrong
about how it works, what problems they
have and so how they should be solved.
Talk to people
The people you end up wanting to work
with (and help) are the ones who
always try and work out how they can
help you. Be more like them
But get really good at asking for things.
Most people will give you a discount for
no reason other than you asked. If you
see someone important and influential,
introduce yourself
Get good at saying no to things, from
people asking you for discounts to
interesting projects you really don't
have enough time for
Think hard about a pivot which makes
good business sense but leads to a
product you no longer care about
Don't pay too much attention to
internet comments about something
you've written, there's always someone
who didn't like one particular sentence
(see point about trolls below)
One troll can wipe out a hundred
positive interactions, be ruthless in
keeping them out of your communities
Only say you're going to introduce
someone or send them something if
you're actually going to do it. People
quickly get a reputation for never
following through
Show don't tell. "I'm going to build this
amazing thing" is a LOT less interesting than
"I've built this slightly crappy thing that
actually does something". EVERYONE is
GOING to build something, most people never
do
Building things is awesome, don't get
too caught up with the whole "Lean
Startup Landing Page" mindset
Lean Startup is awesome, but it's a
pamphlet not a book, read the first few
chapters and you'll get the idea. Four
steps to the epiphany is more technical
and probably a better book
Most startup advice is terrible and the
good advice is usually obvious.
Everyone will give different advice,
trust your gut
Do back of napkin financial forecasts
for every potential business model you
come up with, just to see if it's in the
right ballpark to a couple of orders of
magnitude
It's really easy to automatically dismiss
everyone who starts a conversation with "I'm
looking for a technical co-founder". Doing this
means you miss talking to some interesting
people. But be upfront that you're not that co-
founder so no-one feels like their time is wasted
Trying to raise money and apply to
accelerators is a full time job. You're
probably either building or fund
raising. Not both. If in doubt, choose
building
The solution to many, many problems,
is not technical. That won't stop people
trying solve them with apps
The idea you laughed at when you saw
them pitch at a hackathon may well be
the one that's still alive and kicking
long after whatever you pitched fails
That was not "your idea" unless you
shipped something, otherwise I
invented Facebook, Nest and Oculus
Rift
People don't steal ideas. Tell as many
people as possible. Never ask someone
to sign an NDA before hearing your
idea, you'll instantly lose all credibility
Small teams can move VERY fast, be
really careful getting extra people
involved in any project where agility is
important
Multi-tasking isn't a thing, switching
costs are huge, do one thing at a time
and do it really well. Find a way to
block out interruptions
Tech news (and news is general) has a very low
return on time invested. Prefer books and
conversations
Read Founders Stories, Fooled By
Randomness and The Four Steps to the
Ephiphany
The logo doesn't matter at the start,
find a simple text based logo you can
re-use for different projects
If you possibly can, open source and
write up any side project. Every now
and then you'll meet somebody really
interesting as a result
Regularly working 12 hour days is
probably never a good idea. If this is
happening a lot, find a way to optimise
Talk to everybody
Original post here: http://www.talkingquickly.co.uk/2015/04/what-id-tell-myself-about-startups/