What is Digg?47 Comments
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+12Oh yes, it's "obvious" how to create a successful start-up, which is why you have millions of successfull start-ups coming out of the wordwork every day. It's so easy, a caveman can do it.
- berwiki, on 10/12/2007, -11/+211. Single Founder
2. Bad Location
3. Marginal Niche
4. Derivative Idea
5. Obstinacy
6. Hiring Bad Programmers
7. Choosing the Wrong Platform
8. Slowness in Launching
9. Launching Too Early
10. Having No Specific User in Mind
11. Raising Too Little Money
12. Spending Too Much
13. Raising Too Much Money
14. Poor Investor Management
15. Sacrificing Users to (Supposed) Profit
16. Not Wanting to Get Your Hands Dirty
17. Fights Between Founders
18. A Half-Hearted Effort
Personally, I think this list is pretty repetitive and obvious. I don't think many people will "not want to get hands dirty" when starting a company. What type of pretentious ***** would avoid that type of work?? In which case, I'm glad his company failed. - babakshirazi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7
The majority of the points are nonesense.
1. Single Founder
BS. Single founder is fine. One motivated individual can do alot, sometimes more than two as there is no clashes.
2. Bad Location
It's the internet stupid, you just need a connection. You can develop a successful startup from anywhere in the world.
3. Marginal Niche
You can thrive in a marginal niche.
4. Derivative Idea
No need to be original. Google wasn't original, MySpace or YouTube or dozens other either. Don't waste your time trying to be original. Just do something better than anyone else.
5. Obstinacy
Sure, always be flexible. That goes without saying.
6. Hiring Bad Programmers
They can set you back a bit, but I don't know of any company that failed because of this. You usually don't hire a whole team of losers, you may end up w/ one or two, but you fire them, simple. If you're not smart enough to fire the bad programmers, then you have bigger problems.
7. Choosing the Wrong Platform
No one has failed for this. Dumb argument. Windows, Unix, Linux, Java, .Net, Php all have successes. A poor software design in general can kill you though.
8. Slowness in Launching
There are businesses that haven't yet launched that will eat everyone else's lunch, so this is a dumb point. Google wasn't first. Remember Altavista? Webcrawler? Hello?
9. Launching Too Early
Yahoo is still doing just fine and they launched early. Again, a dumb point.
10. Having No Specific User in Mind
Duh.
11. Raising Too Little Money
Duh.
12. Spending Too Much
Duh.
13. Raising Too Much Money
Duh.
14. Poor Investor Management
This will be impossible if you give up too much of your company for VC funding. It's best not to use VC at all. Venture capitalists are cut throat.
15. Sacrificing Users to (Supposed) Profit
Well, you can't always make a profit in a different way. You can sell like YouTube, but if nobody would have bought those guys, they would have gone belly up. You'd better have an idea of how you will make money.
16. Not Wanting to Get Your Hands Dirty
Duh.
17. Fights Between Founders
Enevitable. Deal with it. This can definitely kill you though. I've seen this a few times.
18. A Half-Hearted Effort
This can happen, but usually not on the technical side. Most startups are busting ass. Some with too much capital can experience this problem as they become arrogant and assured of their success. Don't believe your own ***** is the mantra you should follow. - MrBlue999, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7Disagree w/ #4.
Google wasn't the first search engine.
Flickr wasn't the photo sharing site.
MySpace wasn't the first Social Network site.
A lot of "giants" we see today beat out existing companies simply by being better. If you can address the short comings of an existing solution with a more complete solution, you will get market share. - knuckles, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5That would be the guys wife telling telling him to "just get a ***** job you lazy bastard, you're spending all my money".
- mandarin, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4What no Greed?
I worked for a startup before, the founder kept all the money and hired his friends who suck at programming.
He didnt pay us a lot and expect us to do more than our job requires us to. Have you ever heard of a system admin who doubles as the shipping department? - obh21, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3paul graham's writing is excellent - i recommend reading his other stuff too. his books are good too :)
- bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4very nice article by somebody who obviously know what the F he is talking about, given his experiences.
i'm about to try my own company and i'm following some of the things he lists but going against some of the others. i'll still think of this as a guide though from somebody who has had much success. - pkenjora, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Excellent article for early start-ups. I imagine the contradictory article listed above by "senfo" is geared more towards mid to late cycle start-ups. My company Aware Labs is in the early stage, pre VC with mainly beta testers. The article covers almost all our daily hurdles pretty well.
I've read the same points in other books/essays but this one I'd recommend as a 1st read to all start-ups. Its clear, to the point, and definitely helpful. Paul Grahams choice to write about mistakes vs. successes summed up a few dozen books and countless essays for me. Highly recommended read. - supertvo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5I don't agree with "Windows Sever doesn't scale" assumption either. There are plenty of large system using Windows server. But as a startup, choosing windows is expensive.
- Ninjab3ar, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3Look at the top of the article:
"See why Reddit is growing so much faster than Digg."
WTF? - LGgeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I live in Silicon Valley and have watched lots of start-ups die, all for the same reason. Bad Management.
if you have good management the 18 are less likely to happen. Many start-ups die because you get management that has never done a start-up before and look at it as just a smaller version of the borg corporate world they came from.
define market/product->get funds->get few good programmers->hire as little management as you can->spend as LITTLE as possible until IPO. - ThinkFr33ly, on 10/12/2007, -10/+12Heh... I stopped reading when I made multiple false statements about Windows scalability.
"For example, I think a lot of startups during the Bubble killed themselves by deciding to build server-based applications on Windows."
Give ONE EXAMPLE. A later of startups killed themselves during the bubble because they had no business model whatsoever. Please, find me a SINGLE example of a startup that failed because they chose Windows as their platform. Just one. Please!
"Hotmail was still running on FreeBSD for years after Microsoft bought it, presumably because Windows couldn't handle the load. If Hotmail's founders had chosen to use Windows, they would have been swamped."
Presumably? You presume very, very wrong. Microsoft bought Hotmail in 1997. They decided to wait to move Hotmail to Windows until they were done with Windows 2000 Server. They actually used Hotmail to test early version of Win2k Server, and with great success. In fact, the entire migration only took about 6 months to complete, which is quite amazing giving the massive size of Hotmail. In the end Microsoft dramatically reduced the number of machines required to run Hotmail. See: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/interopmigration/case/hotmail/default.mspx
"fter they merged with X.com, the new CEO wanted to switch to Windows—even after PayPal cofounder Max Levchin showed that their software scaled only 1% as well on Windows as Unix."
Writing software for Windows is very different from writing it for Unix. I'm sure a direct port would perform poorly, just like a direct port of a PS2 game performs poorly on the Xbox despite the Xbox's superiority. Windows has been long proven to scale as well or better than Unix/Linux. To claim that this Paypal example proves otherwise is silly. - bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Read the article. He is saying that a single founder can be bad for a start-up, and also that fights between founders can be bad for a start-up.
- Ifligus, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3They forgot #19: Asking your programmers to bust their ass for the man and instead of rewarding them, take away some perks at the same time.
- 4NDr01D, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2micro management is a death knell
- Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2#19. Labeling your site as "Web 2.0". (even though I do support the style/concept/implemention....it's over-used).
- m2mtech, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4how does a single founder (1.) have fights between founders (17.)
- mike2312, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I would like to add to this list:
Trying to have your hands in everything.
Out of all of the companies I've worked for, the ones that did the best were the ones where the owners/CEOs didn't feel a need to be involved in everyday minutiae. I have worked for some awful companies where the owner(s) of the company felt a need to be involved in every decision that every manager makes. If you as an owner actually TRUST the people that you hire to make good decisions then you will go so much further! When they don't make a good decision then make sure that they know what the cut and dry clear repercussions are. If the managers think that if they make a wrong decision about post-it notes that they will get fired then you will often find your organization feels it MUST come to you for every decision. - senfo, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3Anybody notice how some of these [somewhat] contradict an article that was on here about a week ago? Just goes to show that there isn't necessarily a right and wrong.
http://www.digg.com/tech_news/Software_Startup_Myths_Debunked - nixdoctor, on 10/12/2007, -3/+5It appears that the two people who wrote these two different articles failed for different reasons. So they shared their reasons with us, albeit different they are.
Summary: There are no hard-n-fast rules of success in business. It's a weird combination of hard work + chance. - cclenny, on 10/12/2007, -3/+3Yeah I totally agree. Not to mention ALL those start-ups that DID make it because they chose Windows as the platform of choice.
- jo42, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Not many people mention timing. I've seen stuff ahead of its time not make at the time, yet a few years later, it's all the rage with someone else doing it.
- byronm, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3Its funny people diss Microsoft as being a reason many businesses fail yet it is the reason many thrive as well.
Not every business is built around free software and the generalization that businesses have to be IT or technology driven even if they're an IT company is assinine as well (and short sighted)
Some of the most profitible IT businesses in the world aren't profitible because they choose linux or windows its because they know there customer.
None of the above count if you can't even define who you are and worst of all your destined to failure if you think its the tool that creates business over the customer. - jonnydobad, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Although this article makes a number of good points it is limited to web-based or software companies. Location, programmers, platform have no bearing in any other industry. Personally I am working on two startups right now and trying to determine which one will take off. One is in the entertainment industry and we really don't have a central location, a few in LA, one in FLA, on in WI, and one in IN, and the company shows a great deal of promise. The other one is a web company and may decide to loacte in the future in Cali, but probably not silicon valley, the costs are high there, we need limited funding (probably the best reason to locate in SV), and we don't need many emloyees (another reason to locate in SV). The main points of the article are probably valid no matter what, but the order of importance doesn't make much sense to me. #1- good management. #2-Good product, #3-Well define market, #4-Quality technical talent, #5-Well define business plan including exit strategy.
- dolemite5005, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How is Boston before Seattle in the list of prosperous locations? If anything it should be SF Bay, Seattle, everyone else.
- dok1, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Reminds me of the original motto of Agency.com:
Figure out what sucks. Don't do that. - m2mtech, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Of course it can be bad to be alone, because of certain reasons.
It can also be bad to more than one, because of other reasons.
It could be bad to found a company in January because its cold (people are in a bad mood).
It could be bad to found a company in July because its hot (people go to the swimming pool - ok could be good if you are selling pool equipment).
It's bad to wear red trousers when you found a company because blue would be nicer.
... sorry the article is just a compilation of things because people like to read those lists. And see it got dugg ... - tunercircle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2The article really makes me itchy to write something, so here it goes...
1. Single Founder - One person can start a company, but not doing the whole thing. It is ideal to have someone to work with, to brainstorm and avoid stupid mistakes.
2. Bad Location - It is the internet era, everyone is shopping naked and Email, IM, VOIP are everywhere.
3. Marginal Niche - Just don't pick a market too small.
4. Derivative Idea - Be Original
5. Obstinacy - Be flexible, business plan always changes, always find another way to make profit.
6. Hiring Bad Programmers - Every one knows that, don't you always want to hire the best ones? at affordable costs?
7. Choosing the Wrong Platform - Windows survived for a reason, but LAMP is great :)
8. Slowness in Launching - Launch the original idea first and add more features later.
9. Launching Too Early - Don't throw in a premature products, wasting your marketing budget.
10. Having No Specific User in Mind - One of the basic questions, who is your target market.
11. Raising Too Little Money - If you need money, ask for it. Don't be shy.
12. Spending Too Much - VC money is for the company, not Ferrari or Herman Miller Aeron Chairs.
13. Raising Too Much Money - Why waste your share to investors, if you don't need it.
14. Poor Investor Management - Exchange ideas with your investors, they want their money grow, so they are on your side.
15. Sacrificing Users to (Supposed) Profit - Users/Customers always come first. You can always make profit in different way.
16. Not Wanting to Get Your Hands Dirty - Don't even start it then ...
17. Fights Between Founders - It's all about the Money, Power and Fame... be wise.
18. A Half-Hearted Effort - Do'h .... don't do things half way ... 100% effort 100% concentrate.
Sorry, rather long ...but I just don't see anything special with this articles. Bring on the diggs and buries .... :) - bpapa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1yeah and it's by a guy who has been a part of a number of successful startups so it PROVIDES VALUABLE INSIGHT.
I don't know what's worse on digg -
1) people who post political *****
2) people who are retarded
or
3) people who just hate on every article posted even if they have about 1/100th the knowledge of the author - hodyoaten, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I think something needs to be said for secrecy. I've done pretty well by keeping all development work under wraps and not tooting my horn until the time is appropriate. Otherwise you're taking chances that your competition, especially the companies with deeper pockets, might pick through your agenda and roll something out on their own. Overdoing advertising, publicity, and promotional work gives the impression you're rolling in dough and can destroy your niche.
- fullerkim, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1luck, timing & hard work.
that's my list and i'm sticking to it - Thuktun, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Just so we know, how many of those saying this is BS have actually launched successful startups? How many have launched more than one?
- mikaelc, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I don't get it. What do people mean by saying 'Windows scale better than Linux/Unix' (or the opposite)?
I can understand why a given software architecture may scale diffently than another (like say, a PHP-frontend storing data in flat textfiles compared to a n-tiered J2EE application), but surely there is nothing intrinsic in the OS'es preventing scalability? And a lot of the tools are available for both platforms (Apache, MySQL, Oracles DB's, DB2, Java, Python, Perl...)?
Is is because when talking Windows servers, it is assumed to be a SQL Server, IIS, and a .NET/COM+ setup? And if so, why should such a setup impose any scalability constraints? - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0If you're confident your design is superior and you're near launch (within weeks), you're in a pretty good place. Otherwise, if you're ill-prepared, you won't see that the time is appropriate until after you launch -- and your competitors will come out with a better product regardless.
- inactive, on 02/14/2009, -0/+0my personal experience is that the software available for *nix is what makes it scalable. Also, the cost of using open source virtualization/caching/db is a fraction of proprietary tech
i say good luck to startups reaching for oracle and vmware - geezusfreeek, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1I normally like Paul Graham, but I personally think this is just a sack of bullcrap that just sounds good on the surface.
- deepblue, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hey Ifligus, did we work for the same company?
- streak, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1Any coincidence this posting was submitted so close to the Oct. 18th deadline for applications to "Y Combinator" -- and that it was proofed by Y Combinator's founders?
- m2mtech, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0- the comment was not political
- I did not say I hate the article
then I must be retarded, which is ok for me because I would not notice - twylight, on 10/12/2007, -3/+2nice read, MS hate aside
- williamm, on 10/12/2007, -4/+1Excellent Article! ;)
It was a nice read. - robb.monn, on 10/12/2007, -3/+0boo!
- skabber, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Woo Hoo, Denver made the list of cities that startups prosper.
- redwoodtree, on 10/12/2007, -11/+6Great list, it actually covered all the mistakes that I could think of. My startup went belly-up because of a fight between between the partners... they went on to become billionaires... but they're still a bunch of crooks so screw 'em.
- cmdrNacho, on 10/12/2007, -16/+4alright you M$ whore ..Theres no examples of startups failing from using windows.. cause most startups don't use windows... why are they going to pay for an insecure, expensive platform .. we all know that apache, *nix is better than windows, IIS any day.. stop your whining....
The Digg Toolbar for Firefox lets you Digg, submit content, and keep track of Digg even when you're not on the Digg site. Download the official 
© Digg Inc. 2009
— Content created and posted by Digg users is