Tips for Startup Companies

posted on March 28, 2006 in

Phillip Greenspun writes an article about his ideas on what makes a good startup.

It’s not very long, but I’ll summarize it for you anyways:

  • Knowing how to make a certain set of customers happy is more important and valuable than the technology or easy access to money. (agreed!)
  • Don’t go for VC money until you don’t need it (He puts a lot of reasons out here, all of them valid.)
  • Your Board of Directors should all have strong business experience. (Question, why do you need a BoD if you’re not raising VC money?)
  • Don’t bring in outside managers too early

Having read Phil’s stuff for a while, I can hear the bitterness in his voice when he wrote this list, especially the last three points, all of which blew up in his face a while back. In any case, he’s doing a public service by providing some of the things he’s learned the hard way.

2 Comments »

  1. RE: why have a board…lots and lots of good reasons to have a board, even if you’re not trying to raise VC. Three that come immediately to mind:

    1. Network–can connect you to sales opportunities you might otherwise not be aware of , and can reduce the cold-call disadvantage.

    2. Sanity-check–can provide meaningful feedback to your ideas for growing and managing your business.

    3. “Been there, done that”–learn from their mistakes and successes.

    All of the above does presume you’ve put a board together intelligently, as opposed to having you brother, sister-in-law’s uncle and roommate’s co-worker’s janitor serve because they seem like good folks and are interested….it takes time and thought to put a good board together, just like anything else.

    My $.05,

    -E-

    Comment by erichogberg — March 28, 2006 @ 11:54 am

  2. Hi Eric,

    I agree that all those things are valuable, but a board of directors is a pretty “formal” way to get them. Especially if they haven’t given you any money.

    Board of advisors? Sure. Directors? Seems like an order of magnitude more organization and legal structure for essentially the same amount of advice.

    thanks for your feedback!
    jb

    Comment by jb — March 29, 2006 @ 6:54 am

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