Comments on: The 10 Ways Startup Advice Is Flawed

By: Gobind Singh Khalsa

Gobind Singh Khalsa — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 21:50:23 +0000

Ok we can forget the advice. Just show us the money. We have a great team, market potential, and business model. All we need is the capital in place, then off to the race. Do you have a list of investors that are interested in a great story and a better exit strategy than the story?

By: Ed Loessi

Ed Loessi — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:44:18 +0000

Thanks Eric,

I agree with the 10 that you have. I have been on both sides of the coin having received advice from “those who have done it” and have given advice as “one who has done something”. I definitely think it is important for people seeking advice to understand what level of done it or done something is being offered.

As we all know the number of people who have “done it” is pretty small and more likely you will be relying on people who have done something so try and find people who will be honest with you and tell you what they did and what happened with out a lot of puff and fluff.

In my most recent company we are attempting this by posting out a series of blogs on “Eating our Own Dog Food” and “How we created and implemented X Strategy as a startup”. We took this approach to promote our product, which is for implementing strategic plans and we figured if we showed people that we actually used our product and then what we were thinking or doing a particular period then people would be able to draw from that.

http://www.rapidinfluence.com/blog-0/bid/9631/It-s-strategic-planning-dogfood-time-Part-1

Who knows where the company or the product will go but at least it will be clear to us and others what we were thinking at a particular time!

Thanks,

Ed Loessi

http://www.rapidinfluence.com
http://twitter.com/rapidinfluence
http://twitter.com/edloessi

By: Success And Failure Contribute To The Experience It Takes To Succeed « Open Mountain Blog

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 23:48:45 +0000

[...] It Takes To Succeed Experience matters when it comes to advisers, vendors and employees. A recent post by Eric Ries on gigaom.com challenged the conventional wisdom that people who worked at previously [...]

By: Dave Huer

Dave Huer — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 08:29:30 +0000

IMy friends tell me they have learned from my mistakes! So hopefully this means I ought to be able to set myself up by saying ““I did this, but didn’t get rich and/or famous, so if you do the same thing, you’ll also…”

By: Vincent Van Der Lubbe

Vincent Van Der Lubbe — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 09:54:25 +0000

Thanks Eric. I am a big fan. And your key message ” look for actionable advice that can be applied in small batches, has a measurable outcome and is based on coherent principles that you understand.” is hopefully not only applicable to start ups, but to life in general. I’d also rather hear some advice from entrepreneurs what went wrong, what they thought would work etc. I know of a company which is rather succesfull (market leader in their field and expanding globally) whose business idea came from an intern at their original company.

By: hokya

hokya — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:37:41 +0000

thanks for sharing startup advices,

By: Startup advice brilliance « Open Ambition

Startup advice brilliance « Open Ambition — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:04:03 +0000

[...] Startup advice brilliance By Peter Zaballos A friend pointed me to a superb summary of advice for startups, specifically calling out the ways that advice can be flawed, along with some perceptive insights into how to identify advice that’s actionable and useful. The post is by Eric Reis, and is appropriately titled The 10 Ways Startup Advice is Flawed [...]

By: John Stack

John Stack — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:38:51 +0000

Sage Advice Ed. The focus should be making an “ever-bettter” living. The rest will come with it.

By: Edward Yang

Edward Yang — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:51:38 +0000

I think a lot of would-be entrepreneurs should rethink the popular conception of “start up”. Forget the dreams of going public. Forget the dreams of getting bought out. Focus on starting small, lean and mean. Focus on generating steady cashflow. Focus on keeping costs rock bottom. Focus on beating your customers’ expectations. View “success” as controlling your own destiny while making a good living. Yeah it’s not sexy, but this is the new reality. Trust me, you’ll be much happier.

Ed Yang
President of Firecracker PR

By: Curt

Curt — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:49:23 +0000

I would bet #2, they just got lucky, happens more often than not. I can’t remember what that toolbar startup was in 2000 where it was basically a pyramid scheme for a downloaded ad bar on the bottom of the screen (created by 2 Harvard or Stanford students I think). They likely made a ton of money before most people realized it was a stupid idea that was going nowhere.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 06:46:45 +0000

The “bad” list of 10 maybes was so broad that it pretty much covered every single possibility under the sun, making it for a bit of tough reading. But the general principle of this post is helpful in guiding would-be entrepreneurs.

By: steve

steve — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:29:13 +0000

agreed. more breathless blather. go away, eric.

By: links for 2009-10-20 « Blarney Fellow

links for 2009-10-20 « Blarney Fellow — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:10:50 +0000

[...] The 10 Ways Startup Advice Is Flawed (tags: startup) [...]

By: uberVU - social comments

uberVU - social comments — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 23:30:54 +0000

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Hackernews by tptacek: 10. Maybe they have an agenda. Ask yourself: Does this person stand to benefit if I follow this advice? The VCs I know and trust are honest and very pro-entrepreneur, but I routinely hear others give ad…

By: powel

powel — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:29:42 +0000

and there is a whole industry trying to make entrepreneurs feel insecure and miserable, so they can benefit from them … eg – big VCs, coaching pundits, MBAs with no useful experience, english majors who just want to write another book, business consultants etc etc

By: Ralph Haygood

Ralph Haygood — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 19:32:10 +0000

Well said. In entrepreneurship as in many human endeavors, much is attributed to skill that is largely due to luck or incumbency. Hence 1-5 and 7 on your list of bad advice.