

Every Piece of Startup Advice is a Lie - ericwan
http://www.tonywright.com/2008/every-piece-of-startup-advice-is-a-lie-including-mine/

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nostrademons
I can't think of any startup that's failed from over-emphasizing _both_ of
these points together, but I can think of a few that died from following each
of them in isolation. For example:

The startup I left in September has now been around for 7 years. They're
profitable (obviously; otherwise they wouldn't still be around), but don't
have product-market fit: they have fewer than a dozen customers and need to go
through a laborious and often fruitless sales process for each new customer.
IMHO, their problem is that they're too focused on "Don't stop" and not enough
on "Build something people want." When one of their product ideas fails in the
marketplace, they usually assign an engineer or two to maintain and update it,
in the hopes that if they add a few more features or make it a little faster,
someone will buy it. As a result, they had something like 7 products when I
left, only three of which were bringing in revenue. They might get much
farther by concentrating resources on really trying to get a breakthrough with
one product than scattering their resources across 7.

It's harder to find examples for companies that made something people want and
still failed, but they're out there. AllAdvantage.com comes to mind: they gave
away free money, lots and lots of people wanted it, but they still failed
because they weren't making more money than they were giving away. Friendster
too, sorta: lots of people wanted them, enough that it killed their servers,
so nobody could get to them, so everyone went to MySpace. Both of these were
at least indirectly because they didn't view the startup as a long haul and
work out a sustainable infrastructure.

~~~
tim2
> It's harder to find examples for companies that made something people want
> and still failed

I don't think it's that hard at all:

<http://www.stage6.com/>

There are numerous instances where what the user wants and what is most
profitable for your startup don't perfectly line up.

~~~
webwright
Hrm. That's a good point.

I have no idea what Stage6 offered, but I find it hard to believe that they
wouldn't be able to get (more) funding if they had passionate users and
dramatic growth.

Making money is, of course, another can of worms. I could start a business of
sending everyone $100 (for free) and I'd see a lot of love and growth. Maybe
that's what Stage6 did? If they can't make the argument that scale can get
their total cost down enough that $2.50 CPM could support it, then they are
"buying love", no?

~~~
edu
They offered high-definition videos, using a DivX web player.

They got something that users want (I used their product, and I'm not alone),
but they didn't cope well with success. And after serious political issues
they closed. More info: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=124574>

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davidw
Nice, I've wanted to write something similar for a while.

However, even the "don't stop" one has the counter example of "fail early" and
"know when to give something up and move in a new direction". That doesn't
mean stop altogether, of course, but it may mean giving one thing up for
another.

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wumi
I find the advice "make something people want" is not catch-all.

How are you separating want and need?

People want McDonalds or Starbucks. But if they live in a cold state they NEED
heat, which will require natural gas, electricity, coal/wood stove, or solar
power -- or some other type of fuel (i.e. hydrogen, nuclear, etc.)

Maybe because everybody is only thinking technology applications, it makes
sense, but I think the focus on "what people want" is a little misleading.

Think of the products you use and consume daily, and you will see there is a
certain quantity that you need but may not want or like, and a certain
quantity that you want, but may not need or be able to afford.

Creating something people want, although great advice, is not the end-all and
be-all of startup advice.

Ditto for never giving up.

Read this:
[http://www.theintellectualviewpoint.com/reading/thecommonden...](http://www.theintellectualviewpoint.com/reading/thecommondenominatorofsuccess-
albertengray.pdf)

Sometimes, it's not just never giving up, but it's also doing the RIGHT
things.

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Harj
while making something people want is obviously great advice, sometimes it
gets applied in a detrimental way by implying that if you don't have users
it's because your product isnt't right and you need to lock yourself away and
hack some more features and then you'll have something people want.

In reality your product might be just about good enough but you're not paying
enough attention to smart distribution methods and thats the real cause of
slow growth.

~~~
webwright
That's a great point-- one of the recurring themes we hear from speakers at YC
is "you can't underestimate the importance of distribution".

That being said, I'm always a fan of nailing the most important distribution
tool there is-- word of mouth-- before focusing too much on anything else. If
you can't tell 10 people about it and have them be excited enough about your
product to tell a few more, then distribution is really just pouring water
into a leaky bucket.

Facebook apps are a fine example of distribution-mania that ventures into the
realm of unhealthy. Turns out, no one really wants a lot of those apps-- so
their active userbases are dramatically declining.

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ldambra
A more appropriate topic for his article would have been : _There is No One
True and Only Way_. Less controversial but keeps the substance.

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anewaccountname
This sounds suspiciously like startup advice...

Is this article supposed to be one of those "This statement is false"
paradoxes?

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thomasfl
Best article on the subject since PG's 'how not to die'.

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technoguyrob
So is this piece of startup advice a lie?

~~~
aston
Yes. Self-evidently.

~~~
edw519
Ah, then it must be true.

