18 start-ups deadly wounds

[Editor's note] Paul Graham is co-founder of Y Combinator, a startup incubator in Silicon Valley who was considered the godfather of the day by the American Internet community. The article I translated may have been seen by many people six years ago, but I think it might be worth reading again for those who are already engaged in entrepreneurship.

In a recent speech, I was asked how I should avoid starting a business. At the time, I realized that this could be a difficult question to answer. But in fact, we can from another perspective to answer: "If your company to avoid all the mistakes that may lead to failure, then your company will succeed."

Remembering what should not be done is far more meaningful than remembering someone's success story. If you've put together a "wrong list," and you've managed to avoid those mistakes in running the company, you've got a successful recipe from one perspective. In general, there is only one reason for failure in starting an undertaking: what you do is not what the consumer wants. If this is the case, you will die, this is a fact that can not be changed. In fact, what are the factors that make startups' products unsuitable for the users? The following list outlines the 18 most common fatal injuries that all start-ups failed in basically.

1 alone struggle

Do not know if you noticed that few successful startups were founded by one person. What does a single founder say? At least, it means that people who know you do not agree with you. Even if they are wrong, but you also need partners to brainstorm to avoid foolish behavior. In addition, partners can give you faith support, and single founders are often the result of lack of motivation.

2 siting wrong

Not all places are suitable for business, site selection is very important. Why are start-ups clustered in one city? Because there are a large number of professionals there, they can easily resonate with what you are doing and make it easier for you to hire people. In addition, where the surrounding industry is relatively developed, you also have more opportunities to run into peers, find a good guide for your career.

3 areas too biased

Most of the team who applied for venture capital to Y Combinator made a fatal mistake: the field of choice was too remote. Perhaps this is a good way to avoid competition, but once they have succeeded, there will naturally be competitors. Although many people have a lot of ideas, but in the end chose a secure solution. And this idea is different is that the choice of entrepreneurs in the field of cold is more subconscious to reject big ideas. The best way to solve this problem is to think of yourself as a planning officer for others, not yourself.

4 lack of innovation

Good start-up companies do not start by imitating others. Existing companies do provide some ideas, but they are definitely not the best. So do not blindly imitate other companies, you should tap the inspiration in other directions. In this regard, you should look for unsolved problems and think about what kind of company can solve the problem. You also need to figure out what consumers are complaining and looking forward to.

5 stubborn

On the way to start a business, you should stick to your own thoughts most of the time, but you should follow the laws of nature and avoid subjective assumptions. In fact, many start-ups eventually create the finished product is not the original idea. In the process of business, you should accept a better idea, or even give up the original idea. Of course, it is impossible to change the direction of frequent success, one of the good criteria is whether the new idea represents a certain progress. If you can use what you've done before, that's a sign of improvement. You have to be careful if you want to start over again.

6 eye-catching

The most afraid of start-up companies is the wrong person, because these poor employees do not meet the appropriate level. Once caught in this dilemma, his company moved slowly like an old bull pull truck, while its competitors moved as fast as a rocket. How to pick a good employee? In fact, you can find industry experts to solve the problem, but please do not move is another matter.

7 platform selection

The selection of development platform is a problem that needs to be treated with caution. During the bubble, many start-ups were mired in opting for Windows platform servers, while Hotmail still used FreeBSD servers after being acquired by Microsoft for several years. You have to carefully choose the platform, some platforms seem good on the surface, once used on the tomb is tantamount to digging. Javaapplets was once considered a new way to release applications, the result of choice of its 100 start-ups are dead ends.

8 released slowly

There is a classic famous saying is that the degree of completion of the software will remain at about 85%. Start-ups always find various excuses to delay the release of products, in fact, this also reflects some problems: the pace of work is too slow, did not find out the real needs of users, too much pursuit of perfection. In fact, to solve these problems is very simple, as soon as possible to release the product on it: Only through user feedback, you understand what you want to do.

9 released too early

What is the minimum requirement for the release of a product? The core is that the product itself is available to consumers, but also as a complete basic project for functional expansion. In fact, early product testers are generally very tolerant, they only require a little use of the product. If you do premature release of the product, it will destroy not only your product, but also the company's reputation, and even the user is gone.

10 The target user is not clear

If you try to solve a problem that you do not understand, it is tantamount to ropes around your neck. Many founders assume that their products will exist users, but specifically who is not even know yourself. In fact, this is very dangerous. Entrepreneurs should abide by the principle of "coming from practice." Any subjective guess is not allowed. They must contact users and observe their reactions. If your product can not find a specific user, it is doomed to failure.

11 too little money

Too little money means you can not fight for enough time to make your business successful. If you get funding from an investor, that amount should be able to reach the next stage at least. In addition you have to control what the next stage is and how much it costs. I would suggest that start-ups should lower both of these two indicators at the very beginning: try to spend less and set the initial goal of creating a solid prototype.

Excessive spending

If you raise 5 million is not enough, then the reason is likely to be excessive spending. Employ a large number of workers is the most classic way to burn. I have three major proposals for recruit people: (a) can be exempt; (b) shares instead of wages; (C) only recruit products or pull customers of these two categories.

13 Too much money

Too little funding is not enough, but raising too much money can also cause big problems. After the money is over, you want to change the working environment and recruit more people. However, it does not mean that the company will definitely move in a favorable direction because your employees do not invest as much as you and even play tricks.

In addition to fight for a large investment is a very time-consuming process, the venture capital from raising a considerable amount of funds may spend more time than you venture even longer. When your competitors are racing against time to research and develop products, I believe you do not want to waste time on investors. So, if you get the right deal, sign it.

Manage investors

As a company founder, you should handle the company and investor relations. You can not ignore them because they may provide insights, but you can not leave the company to work for them. The amount of effort spent on managing investors depends on how much you get from them. Even very successful companies, have been fooled by investors, for example, Jobs in 1985 by the board of directors out of Apple. Even Google, they had very early investors with a very bad experience.

15 Sacrificing users for potential benefits

Making products that consumers need is far more difficult than making money, so entrepreneurs should think about business models later. There are always people who think it is irresponsible not to consider the business model from the start. I want to say is that the last successful companies are user-oriented companies, Google as an example, they are all first search engine, and then consider making money. If you do not consider the business model is not responsible for the initiative, then, regardless of the product itself is simply evil.

16 want to pick up money, first bend over

Of the first startups we funded, most of the founders were reluctant to write programs and none of them seem willing to deal with business-related money. Only one founders spent half the time talking to high-level cell phone companies, and finally received a large order. If you want to start a business, you have to face the fact that you can not all sit in your office and write programs that require someone to deal with business stuff, and so are other industries.

17 nest in the bucket

Fighting among founders is commonplace for companies, and the exit of partners with key technologies can be troublesome. If you can be more cautious in choosing a business partner, most bickering can be avoided. Therefore, when choosing a partner, do not be afraid to pull alienated you from the same boat, but also to start a company because someone has the technology and desperate to go together. For start-ups, the most important factor is people, so there should not be too much accommodation in this area.

18 did not do my best

From a statistical point of view, most of the failed startups and their founders have another good-paying job, and those successful startups and their founders have almost all their dependents on board. The reason why those startups fail because they can not do what they want is something they can not do because they have not done their best. In other words, the most common mistake you make when starting a business is doing everything you can.

English Original: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups