The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

Have these in mind when you are starting out:

  1. 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

Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html

 

What Type of Hardware?

There are many to name, but these are the ones not to build:

  • FUNware is not a business
  • EASYware is not defensible
  • SAMEware is not positioned well enough
  • SOLUTIONware great technology in search of applications
  • VAPORware when not a complete scam, it is naively optimistic and end up not shipping
  • LAMEware did not keep its promise and ships a mediocre product
  • FAILware kept on specs but successfully built something nobody wants
  • LATEware handled manufacturing so badly it shipped after the competitors it woke up
  • LOSSware has been priced badly and can’t make a profit. Can it cross the Bridge of Death? (http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/28/financing-lean-hardware/)
  • BOREware gets boring after a short time
  • FUTUREware is so futuristic that the majority won’t buy it until many moons have passed
  • LOCALware is so tied to the local ecosystem it can’t be done elsewhere

Source: http://techcrunch.com/2014/04/06/the-lean-hardware-startup-investing-in-hardware-startups/