Well I guess that shows which is easier: Investment banking or doing a startup.
;-)
How My Startup Failed
11–20 of 21 posts
Re: How My Startup Failed
#12This would have been a perfect fit for "sell before you build". If he would have secured a large order from a retailer and then put it in production, he would have been successful. Not securing a large order would have told him it just wasn't worth doing. I don't think the "sell before you build" method it is a good fit for all businesses though.
Re: How My Startup Failed
#13Re: How My Startup Failed
#14Earlier quoted context omitted.
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=303780
Good find :-)
Not really :)
Re: How My Startup Failed
#15There was no doubt about it: I had discovered The Next Big Thing. Like Edison and the lightbulb, like Gates and the pc operating system Ouch.
Discovered. Not invented.
To clarify: Bill Gates discovered operating systems, and made a lot of money producing and selling them. He did not invent them.
Re: How My Startup Failed
#16This would have been a perfect fit for "sell before you build". If he would have secured a large order from a retailer and then put it in production, he would have been successful. Not securing a large order would have told him it just wasn't worth doing. I don't think the "sell before you build" method it is a good fit for all businesses though.
Okay, let's think about how this could have been successful. My next suggestion would be to let the people in that Thai factory do all the packing etc. work such that a finished end product could have been shipped. I think a factory worker's salary in Thailand is around $100 / month.
Re: How My Startup Failed
#17This would have been a perfect fit for "sell before you build". If he would have secured a large order from a retailer and then put it in production, he would have been successful. Not securing a large order would have told him it just wasn't worth doing. I don't think the "sell before you build" method it is a good fit for all businesses though.
Okay, let's think about how this could have been successful. My next suggestion would be to let the people in that Thai factory do all the packing etc. work such that a finished end product could have been shipped. I think a factory worker's salary in Thailand is around $100 / month.
Originally, the Thai company did do all the packing. The original shipment had seepage of the lubrication, so he sent them back. The reason he had to do a lot of hand work was because, after receiving the new shipment, he realized that: "According to the Food and Drug Administration, I needed to include a "how to use" guide with each key chain.". So, he was stuck doing this work himself.
Re: How My Startup Failed
#18He has an MBA
Yeah...MBAs don't really teach you how to be an entrepreneur.
Re: How My Startup Failed
#19You know? This was one hell of an education, the kind of thing I wish I could read and learn more about.
Re: How My Startup Failed
#20"Though I had a Stanford MBA and regularly consulted on multimillion-dollar projects, I didn’t know the first thing about starting a business."
That's a little scary.