For entrepreneurs and product managers: Startup Advices from Paul Graham

Read the article here: Paul Graham’s Startup Advice for the Lazy

Here is what determined me to write this post:

The best way to come up with startup ideas is to ask yourself the question: what do you wish someone would make for you?

 

The most important parts, from my point of view, together with my comments:

The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn

• Release Early
  Get a version 1 out fast, then improve it based on users’ reactions. I don’t mean you should release something full of bugs, but that you should release something minimal. Users hate bugs, but they don’t seem to mind a minimal version 1, if there’s more coming soon.

Sorin’s note: this is a real Minimum Viable Product

• Keep Pumping Out Features
  You should make your system better at least in some small way every day or two. Users love a site that’s constantly improving. They’ll like you even better when you improve in response to their comments, because customers are used to companies ignoring them.

Sorin’s note: Release fast, release often

• Make Users Happy
  The most important is to explain, as concisely as possible, what the hell your site is about. The other thing I repeat is to give people everything you’ve got, right away. If you have something impressive, try to put it on the front page, because that’s the only one most visitors will see.

Sorin’s note: A happy user will recommend you and bring other users. Make this process as easy as possible by suggesting to the user to recommend your product.

• Fear the Right Things
  Way more startups hose themselves than get crushed by competitors. There are a lot of ways to do it, but the three main ones are internal disputes, inertia, and ignoring users.

Sorin’s note: The killer of startups are the startups themselves, not their competition.

• Commitment Is a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy
  The most important quality in a startup founder is determination. You have to be the right kind of determined, though. You have to be determined, but flexible.
• There Is Always Room
  The reason we don’t see the opportunities all around us is that we adjust to however things are, and assume that’s how things have to be.
• Don’t Get Your Hopes Up
  It’s ok to be optimistic about what you can do, but assume the worst about machines and other people. When you hear someone say the words “we want to invest in you” or “we want to acquire you,” I want the following phrase to appear automatically in your head: don’t get your hopes up.
• Speed, not Money
  Economically, a startup is best seen not as a way to get rich, but as a way to work faster. You have to make a living, and a startup is a way to get that done quickly, instead of letting it drag on through your whole life.

© Copyright 2015 Sorin Mustaca, All rights Reserved. Written For: Sorin Mustaca on Cybersecurity

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