Is there an N=1 anti-pattern on the list? I built an enterprise platform on a low 6 figure annual contract for my first customer. It’s looking like there are no other customers who desire the same type of platform.
It’s the first item on the list.
Startup Anti-Patterns
21–30 of 102 posts
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#22Python is an anti pattern. Nodejs + typescript is superior across almost every dimension other than data science and familiarity. People think it’s apples and oranges but it’s not. Also don’t forget golang too. If your app is Python in the beginning then you’re pretty much locked in. It’s doable, but you’re going to be dealing with a lot of Python specific warts.
No, caring too much about the language and not the problem is the anti pattern
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#23Seems like a useful list of things to avoid when running a startup, plus situations where it may not always be a bad thing. Still, got a few thoughts here: > if you build it, they will come This feels like the cause for so many news/media bundling services, akin to Blendle. Loads of people seem to have the thought process "no-one pays for journalism, that's because it's too inconvenient to subscribe seperately, let's…
I don't think that's the real cause for the Wii U's woes. Consoles from the big players are almost automatic buys for a lot of people, just to get access to the new games. They have to screw up to change that. No one was particularly bothered by what the Wii U offered, even though it wasn't really compelling.
I hold that the Wii U was primarily an advertising problem, with a dash of the Wii itself being an anomaly.
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#24Is there an N=1 anti-pattern on the list? I built an enterprise platform on a low 6 figure annual contract for my first customer. It’s looking like there are no other customers who desire the same type of platform.
Seems to be anti-pattern #4: If you build it, they will come. His description matches yours almost word for word. > The founders automatically assumed that if they had the vision and one customer wanted it, many others would https://www.itamarnovick.com/startup-anti-pattern-4-if-you-b...
FWIW I think it is miscategorized. "Build it and they will come" is a different type of problem: it commonly refers to building something thinking that its value and usefulness are self-evident that it will sell itself, and therefore one needs no sales or marketing.
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#25Earlier quoted context omitted.
Seems to be anti-pattern #4: If you build it, they will come. His description matches yours almost word for word. > The founders automatically assumed that if they had the vision and one customer wanted it, many others would https://www.itamarnovick.com/startup-anti-pattern-4-if-you-b...
FWIW I think it is miscategorized. "Build it and they will come" is a different type of problem: it commonly refers to building something thinking that its value and usefulness are self-evident that it will sell itself, and therefore one needs no sales or marketing.
Look, this quote originated in a 1989 movie about ghosts and baseball.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Field_of_Dreams
The quote is from a ghostly, disembodied voice which encourages the protagonist to rip out their farm's corn crops and build a useless, pointless baseball field, in the middle of nowhere, so that the ghosts of dead players can come back to entertain people. The farm and the family are in financial trouble, and the bank wants to foreclose on the land, and so what has he got to lose?
The film has a happy ending, of course: the guy builds the field, and all the ghosts come, and the human fans come as well, and his new baseball field is a rousing financial success. Our protagonist has honored his father, a lifelong baseball fan, and he's provided for his family, in the most unlikely of business ventures, counseled by voices of the undead.
It seems weirdly missing the point to apply this to any real-world situations. You are essentially invoking a weird ghost story of baseball and utterly implausible fiction. This is not business advice, this is superstition. Field of Dreams protagonist in real life would've been hauled before a psychiatrist and medicated, and promptly served divorce papers along with the foreclosure.
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#26Such anti patterns are like Nostradamus’s prophecies - you see a company flopping then curve fit a narrative to justify the antipatterns. How do I, as a founder, know that I am falling into an anti pattern? I don’t believe it is possible to know. You can only “know” in hindsight and that makes these anti patterns useless.
>> How do I, as a founder, know that I am falling into an anti pattern?
The easiest way is to have outside advisors who can and are willingto adversarially challenge the assumptions you're making. If you don't have those, good cofounders can sometimes play the same role (although that is harder since they are likely to share similar biases as you).
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#27Obsessing over microservices before product market fit is a common, expensive trap. Just use a monolith, please.
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#28Yep, seen too many startups jump straight to Kubernetes and microservices before they even have a validated product. Ouch.
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#29The issue with many critiques like this is that “it depends” and that many of these strategies actually work while often they do not - but given that most startups fail even generally successful strategies will have a high rate of failure.
And the people that study these types of lists to apply it to their own case are then engaging in “analysis paralysis” because the list is so long you are bound to be caught up by it.
So while I think it is useful to critique your idea and business the best thing to do is to try and sell it and make money and keep adjusting and trying new things to maximize your income. There is no magic bullet.
Re: Startup Anti-Patterns
#30Some seem to treat microservices as a sign of good engineering when it's often just premature complexity. You can always split a monolith later, but you're stuck maintaining that complexity from day one