It's a painful truth that 95 to 99% of startups die...For quite a bit of time I was thinking hard on how to get into the other 1 to 5 % ...
Certain thoughts to remind myself (on why startups fail and the things to be cautious about) ....
1. Failing to create value for the user and not having a user first culture ...
The first cause of failure must be creating something that the users do not want . And not focusing on the user is probably the biggest mistake a company can make on the way...
“What happened was, the designers came up with this really great idea… and the engineers go, “Nah, we can’t do that, That’s impossible.” … the manufacturing people…go “We can’t build that!” And it gets a lot worse… And I said “No, no, we’re doing this.” And they said, “Well, why?” And I said, “Because I’m the CEO and I think it can be done.” And so they kind of begrudgingly did it. But then it was a big hit.”
“Sure what we do has to make commercial sense, but it’s never the starting point. We start with the product and the user experience.”
2. Failing to create a proper distribution channel ...
However great the product be , you need to have a proper distribution channel to take the product to the customers .
3. Suicide or rather Giving Up!
Persistence is the key to success ..
"Great entrepreneurs are who believed in their product and had the persistence to see it succeed."
4. Lack of focuz ...
"Gold is found digging deep , not wide"
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other things…”
5. Hiring B players ...
"For most things in life, the range between best and average is 30% or so. The best airplane flight, the best meal, they may be 30% better than your average one. What I saw with Woz was somebody who was fifty times better than the average engineer. He could have meetings in his head. The Mac team was an attempt to build a whole team like that, A players. People said they wouldn’t get along, they’d hate working with each other. But I realized that A players like to work with A players, they just didn’t like working with C players. At Pixar, it was a whole company of A players. When I got back to Apple, that’s what I decided to try to do. You need to have a collaborative hiring process. When we hire someone, even if they’re going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers." Source: Isaacson's book
"A good engineer is better than a 100 ordinary engineers"
Who could be a good hire ..."One who is smart and who gets things done."
Hope I can keep a check on those ...pretty hard though ...
Certain thoughts to remind myself (on why startups fail and the things to be cautious about) ....
1. Failing to create value for the user and not having a user first culture ...
The first cause of failure must be creating something that the users do not want . And not focusing on the user is probably the biggest mistake a company can make on the way...
“What happened was, the designers came up with this really great idea… and the engineers go, “Nah, we can’t do that, That’s impossible.” … the manufacturing people…go “We can’t build that!” And it gets a lot worse… And I said “No, no, we’re doing this.” And they said, “Well, why?” And I said, “Because I’m the CEO and I think it can be done.” And so they kind of begrudgingly did it. But then it was a big hit.”
“Sure what we do has to make commercial sense, but it’s never the starting point. We start with the product and the user experience.”
2. Failing to create a proper distribution channel ...
However great the product be , you need to have a proper distribution channel to take the product to the customers .
3. Suicide or rather Giving Up!
Persistence is the key to success ..
"Great entrepreneurs are who believed in their product and had the persistence to see it succeed."
4. Lack of focuz ...
"Gold is found digging deep , not wide"
“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other things…”
5. Hiring B players ...
"For most things in life, the range between best and average is 30% or so. The best airplane flight, the best meal, they may be 30% better than your average one. What I saw with Woz was somebody who was fifty times better than the average engineer. He could have meetings in his head. The Mac team was an attempt to build a whole team like that, A players. People said they wouldn’t get along, they’d hate working with each other. But I realized that A players like to work with A players, they just didn’t like working with C players. At Pixar, it was a whole company of A players. When I got back to Apple, that’s what I decided to try to do. You need to have a collaborative hiring process. When we hire someone, even if they’re going to be in marketing, I will have them talk to the design folks and the engineers." Source: Isaacson's book
"A good engineer is better than a 100 ordinary engineers"
Who could be a good hire ..."One who is smart and who gets things done."
Hope I can keep a check on those ...pretty hard though ...
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