

Startup Lessons Learned in 12 Months - jmaskell
http://jamesmaskell.co.uk/2012/startup-lessons/

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Jabbles
These read rather like a horoscope, mainly vague or tautological statements.
I'd prefer a blog post of the same length that explores just one of these
ideas.

You could make a list of 50 short statements that contradict all of these:

1\. Take the time to research your idea and its potential market, customers
and profitability before jumping into code.

2\. Knowing the basics is not enough, someone on your team is going to have to
actually do the work, and they need to have a deep understanding of what's
involved. Everyone can learn, and startups are a great place to learn, but you
need to have a solid foundation.

3\. Your technology stack will be critical to your future success. Don't skimp
on this decision, research it well and don't be afraid to learn new
techniques.

These are just examples, they're not necessarily any more or less true than
the OP. The point is without even anecdotal evidence, they're not much help.

Number 35 has an amusing sentence: "A happy and motivated team is dangerous."
:P

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jmaskell
So I guess the main point of this article was to get some ideas down and
provide a quick summary of things I've learnt in the past year. Getting
feedback is helpful as it shows where I can drill down in to more detail in
future posts.

For now quick responses to your points:

1\. We spent a lot of time playing around with ideas, thinking big, making
assumptions about what people wanted. We should have just built something
small, quickly, put it out there and got feedback. Basically build a smaller
MVP.

2\. Knowing the basics is a good place to start - it at least makes it easier
to hire the right people if you understand the role a bit.

3\. Agree with your counter point. Specifically we spent a lot of time
agonising over Rails or Django - when for our project there wouldn't have been
much difference between the two - either would have been just as good. Getting
the MVP built would have been a more constructive use of time.

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netvarun
Great post! Lots of interesting points, but I disagree with:

"You need to pick a large market if you want to raise venture capital
investment. A business that makes £10m profit per year may look great to you,
but it's small fry for a VC."

If one is making 10MM a profit a year, the company is clearly worth >= 10X the
amount. I am no VC, but I would assume most VCs would be drooling over
investing in such a company.

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dangravell
I was especially interested in this comment given the OP's choice of target
market. Is the UK secondary market big enough... do you think you can take the
business off the auction houses? My understanding of them is that a big part
of their service, and why they might be able to justify larger fees, is the
cellar valuation, all-in-one service e.g. for clearing out a dead relative's
estate.

I definitely think there's something in the individual's secondary market and
the competition that exists, e.g. B4W and also the online forums, prove this.
It would also be nice to arrange selling of smaller quantities than cases.
Just wasn't sure if that would reach the numbers in the OP's point.

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jmaskell
There are quite a few large players in the market and many middle men between
the producer and consumer. The secondary market is very inefficient - the
default is to sell to a traditional merchant who will take 10-25% of the
price. Auction houses take around 25% and prefer volume to single cases.

This gives us several angles to attack. Market size was a concern when talking
to investors - and we took money from people who would be happy with that kind
of scale.

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boxyroom
I too decided not to do a postgrad. I'd rather spend money starting my company
than paying a university to acquire knowledge which I can get for free on the
Internet. Moreover the practical experience I get from starting a business far
exceed the theoretical stuff.

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indiecore
Sort of unrelated but I really like your Vinetrade site. This is how Bootstrap
sites should be done, it's obvious enough to someone looking at it who is in
the know that you used it and for someone who isn't the UX is familiar enough
that they can jump right in but it's differentiated enough to keep YOUR style
front and centre.

Did you do it up yourself or did you hire someone?

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jmaskell
Thanks for the comment - we have a full time designer on the team. Bootstrap
is a great base and allows us to build quickly - but it still takes a lot of
work to get the customisation right.

