
The few paths to startup success - nspeller
http://nathanspeller.com/paths-to-success/
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eduardordm
Nice heads up. It seems that most newbie entrepreneurs don't really want to
get their hands dirty (which is obviously not programming).

Yet, success is a very abstract concept. With that in mind I don't think that,
in general, success is rare. Failure and success are both abundant. A single
outcome can be a success and failure, depending on what is your baseline.

For example, when I built a small financial firm my goal was to build
something cool AND get bloody rich. I failed on that. Yet, we have millions of
customers right now. My dream of retiring before 30 to work for fun didn't
work out.

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cateye
_Ask the right questions. Create hypotheses. Create experiments to test your
assumptions. Measure, measure, measure._

This is what everyone always, consciously or unconsciously is trying. Taking a
more scientific approach doesn't necessarily need to increase your chance.

The thing is: there is no pattern for success generation. This is against the
nature of being exceptional. Stop seeking it.

~~~
giulivo
> The thing is: there is no pattern for success generation. Stop seeking it.
> This is against the nature of being exceptional.

Of the same idea is Alberto Savoia in his book about pretotyping, where he
describes such a Law of Failure.

What one can do is try to fail faster and I very much suggest to read the
book, it's for free: <http://www.pretotyping.org/pretotype-it---the-book>

~~~
cateye
Failing fast is in my opinion also not a formula for success.

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speeder
Too bad the theory sometimes is hard to implement...For example, my startup
don't have enough money to test our marketing theories, the only thing we can
do is forever change our products, but that won't help, when you make mobile
apps, you /need/ marketing, otherwise you /will/ fail.

~~~
jordanmessina
I hate buying into the idea that any company /needs/ marketing. Word of mouth
is very powerful. I think all companies need to position themselves for slow
growth. For example, I LOVE the Weebly story:
<http://startupschool.org/2012/rusenko/>

Over night successes rarely happen. That's my issue with incubators. A lot of
times they invest in potential overnight successes when they should really be
investing in those most positioned for slow growth.

~~~
bravura
Marketing != advertising

Marketing, for a startup, means finding a repeatable sales model.

~~~
digitalengineer
It's more. Marketing is you, your partners, your service, your FAQ, the way to
handle email/phone calls, interviews, the building of trust.

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schiang
I think the trap that a lot of entrepreneurs fall into is trying to create the
next billion dollar company. It's better to start small. Find your niche and
solve an actual problem for that niche. If it really is a good product, it
will eventually grow on its own.

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jacques_chester
Part of the problem with the backtracking analogy is that the graph changes
while you're traversing it. It changes due to external factors. The act of
moving to different nodes may cause the previous edge to be deleted. And so
on.

