7 + 3 Lessons From Failed Startups
Great Inc post on lessons from a failed startup include:
1. Consider the entire experience
2. Raise money when you can not when you need too
3. Don't give away equity too soon or too fast
Read the other 4 from the Inc post: https://www.inc.com/yoram-solomon/7-lessons-you-should-learn-from-my-failed-startup.html
I'd add three of my own lessons from my "failed startup":
1. Don't think in terms of success and failure, win and lose. Think about impact, learning, and potential. Startups require a more nuanced sense of win/lose.
2. Don't hire your friends even if they are the right people because you are probably blind to faults, issues, or other "round peg in square hole" problems with friends.
3. Create any startup in collaboration with customers. Don't do the "mad inventor" thing and go off and think you've created a better mousetrap. You won't. Instead, collaborate and build on what you learn from real customers facing immediate problems.
It's The People Stupid
I heard the same message over and over. When Curagami did our VC dog and pony show team and people kept coming up. Dope Founder Rob Grough says the same thing in the most convincing way I've ever heard - mediocre ideas can survive and thrive when great people are involved.
Amen brother Rob.
Hiring must be the least understood most important startup strategy. I didn't hire well and the VC knew it. The failure was all mine and they knew that too.
Even the best ideas, the ideas leading to today's most successful brands, must change tactics, positioning, and people. VC know that change means they can't buy what is in front of them or even the rosy promised future. VC invest in people and in teams.
Brother Rob has it right. It's the people stupid.