Top Ten Startup Rules
Monday, November 28, 2005
Evan Williams, founder of podcasting startup Odeo, and before that, Pyra Labs of Blogger fame, shares his top-ten rules for startups. Excerpts below:
1. Be Narrow Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in.
2. Be Different
Ideas are in the air. There are lots of people thinking about—and probably working on—the same thing you are. And one of them is Google. Deal with it.
3. Be Casual
We're moving into what I call the era of the "Casual Web" (and casual content creation). This is much bigger than the hobbyist web or the professional web. Why? Because people have lives. And now, people with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the really big home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed, help—people's everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or identity change.
4. Be Picky
It applies to everything you do: features, employees, investors, partners, press opportunities.
5. Be User-Centric
Don't get sidetracked by technologies or the blog-worthiness of your next feature. Always focus on the user and all will be well.
6. Be Self-Centered
Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch. Create something you want to exist in the world. Be a user of your own product. Hire people who are users of your product. Make it better based on your own desires. (But don't trick yourself into thinking you are your user, when it comes to usability.)
7. Be Greedy
It's always good to have options. One of the best ways to do that is to have income. While it's true that traffic is now again actually worth something, the give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy stamps an expiration date on your company's ass.
8. Be Tiny
The most likely end game if you're successful is acquisition. Acquisitions are much easier if they're small.
9. Be Agile
Many dot-com bubble companies that died could have eventually been successful had they been able to adjust and change their plans instead of running as fast as they could until they burned out, based on their initial assumptions. Pyra was started to build a project-management app, not Blogger. Flickr's company was building a game. Ebay was going to sell auction software. Initial assumptions are almost always wrong.
10. Be Balanced
What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled, balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work.
Read full Ten Rules for Web Startups
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posted at 12:22 PM
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