Have these in mind when you are starting out:
- Single Founder
- Bad Location
- Marginal Niche
- Derivative Idea
- Obstinacy
- Hiring Bad Programmers
- Choosing the Wrong Platform
- Slowness in Launching
- Launching Too Early
- Having No Specific User in Mind
- Raising Too Little Money
- Spending Too Much
- Raising Too Much Money
- Poor Investor Management
- Sacrificing Users to (Supposed) Profit
- Not Wanting to Get Your Hands Dirty
- Fights Between Founders
- A Half-Hearted Effort
Source: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
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/