
20 Wrenches In The Software Startup Machinery - Mystalic
http://onstartups.com/home/tabid/3339/bid/5751/20-Wrenches-In-The-Software-Startup-Machinery.aspx
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volida
"You think you can't sell the idea until you have a product. This is a major
killer - you think that as soon as you have feature X or Y, you can start
showing people your idea. One more time - if you can't sell the idea, you
can't sell the product"

What a confusing statement --chicken or the egg

I believe most of the articles on startups are just noise.

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dshah
What I think he is trying to say is that you should be able to test the
concept/idea without building the full product.

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volida
assuming the original idea will probably change until you have a product, it
is not really substantial to make that argument.

I assume a product is something you can sell, so it's natural that attitude
towards making it succesful will make you realise the need to alter the idea
or how to make it appealing. It's something like a prerequestie.

I say most articles are noise because the advice is generic. A more precise
post "how I reacted to situation X" is probably more worth.

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edw519
He's absolutely right. Startup failures make a lot of these "mistakes".

But here's what's scary: Startup successes _also_ make a lot of these
mistakes.

Think of a successful software company. Google, Yahoo, Amazon, ebay, facebook,
it doesn't really matter which. Then, with that company in mind, go back and
read the list again. How many of these "mistakes" did they make? Probably
quite a few.

You can do all the market research in the world, have great talent, execute
perfectly, and still fail. OTOH, you can make 10 or 15 of these mistakes and
succeed fabulously. Sometimes, no matter what you do, the marketplace and lady
luck have their own ideas.

At some point you just gotta stop all the due diligence, bite the bullet, and
plow ahead anyway.

I like lists like this. They do get me thinking. The problem with this one is
that it really doesn't tell me enough to differentiate winning from losing.

