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What are some important observations and lessons you've learned working at startups and running businesses that were not immediately obvious (both technical and non-technical)? Did you learn the hard way?
* This message pre-censored by HN in order to preserve curiosity.
2. Expect your startup/business/product to morph into something else, and that you'll change names and domain names, maybe multiple times.
3. You need an origin story, especially if you want any press. It also helps to be good looking.
What is a fair way of measuring someone's effectiveness. It is easy to try and be kind but if you e.g. have a salesperson who is not selling, they need to go.
It is tempting to think you can't afford great people early on but plenty of businesses prove that great people sometimes put belief in the product or an interesting job/challenge or potential equity above a base salary.
- Product Market Fit - find that before continuing to perfect the product. - Market size and especially addressable market size. We learnt it the hard way with children's apps. - Tech is a tool. Unless you are doing groundbreaking research, dont be in awe of the tools (tech), nor let it go crazy expensive. - One needs a deep reserve of patience and strength, you will get challenged in all dimensions. - Sometimes you…
How are these things non-obvious? Isn't that like business lesson numbers 1, 2, and 3?
I read and bought into Basecamps reasoning about no-by-the-seat-pricing(1) and tried it for Submotion. Now, it's always hard to know why people don't try your product out, but two people kindly hinted to me that they were confused by the price and thought that it meant that they didn't really understand what they were getting.
Obviously, as with any advice, this applies in specific situations only but it's now something that I keep in mind, not only in pricing: remove any unnecessary source of confusion, even if it's clever. Not unlike code :-)
(1) (https://m.signalvnoise.com/why-we-never-sold-basecamp-by-the...)