5 things I knew (or should have) before my startup, but didn't learn until now

Wasn't too worried about paying the bills as I was living in my parents' basement. However, the drawback of that is the same as having too much money--doesn't make you anxious enough to figure out how to get to ramen profitability.

It wasn't too hard to stay on track if you're use to seeing things to the end, or if you're into what you do, or you believe in it. What's difficult is deciding when to quit. Do you have little users because your product sucks? Or because you don't know where to find them? If not, how do you? Is there something here, but you're not doing it right, or is there really not anything there?

Having been through that as a single founder for a little less than two years was a lonely at times, but you just get use to it after a while. If anything, it's toughened me up a little.

Overall, I think quitting your job isn't quite as scary as one may think, especially if you use your time to learn and grow. Chances are, you'll learn a lot (what, people never say, but it's one of those experience things), and you won't end up in the gutter. If I've discovered anything, it's that the world is a bigger place than you can imagine. People do all sorts of things to make money, and you find opportunities and opportunities find you as long as you do something of meaning to yourself, can teach others, and can build something and get it out there for others to use.

If I had a regret these last four years, it's that I didn't learn faster, and that I didn't quit sooner. That said, don't quit willy-nilly. Have a plan and have goals. Those plans and goals might change, but as long as you know what you're going to be learning out of the experience, that's what counts.

I can tell you from experience that if you can undercut the competition by half, you get a lot of slack when it comes to not having all the cool features the other guy has.

One of the things that I think many people miss about competing on price is that if you don't have the marketing muscle of the compititon, you need to be dramatic about your price. few will go with an unknown to save 10%; but if you can save 50%, well, that's a pretty good argument to go do some research on that unknown company, no?

(Overall, my position on the 'compete on price' / 'never compete on price' debate is "do what you are good at" - if you are good at selling to people with money, sure. charge a premium and take advantage of your connections and skillset. Rich people and large corporations need stuff, and there's nothing wrong with giving it to them. On the other hand, if you are good at being cheap and bad at selling, well, maybe you should think about attracting the attention of people willing to do research by lowering your price.)

No. It's "literally" around 20% to 30%. The rest were tech people looking for business types or other tech people. Here's the spreadsheet: http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AgCvDTyBjHdOdDFfMENq...

You were lazy (you didn't even bother to google that spreadsheet and look) and spoke in platitudes/over-generalizations and reiterated conventional wisdom. Shame on you. The truth is not only different but much more interesting.

Everyone knows that it's easy to have an idea.

No, it's not. So many of those entries are people who are technical but looking for a good idea to work on. "Business types are a dime a dozen." Not so. A good business development person will rock your project. How many great, but dead, sites are out there? Plenty.

Picking the right cofounder is important.

Fuck that nonsense. You're mouthing the words someone else gave you. If you have an organic cofounder -- great; go for it. I'm not against having cofounders. But if you think for one moment that a project needs more than one founder, and you have to pick one for the project to succeed, you simply don't know what you're talking about.

Not that I agree with you completely. But I think it is important to not take an influential person (like pg)'s words for granted without your own critical thinking and some healthy doubts.

Like PG said, a lot of startup fails because they're single founders (without emotional support and other reasons). However,If you pick a co-founder just because PG or other VCs/bloggers said so, a lot of times, your co-founder will be the source of your failure.

Every person's situation/problem is different and all roads lead to Rome. I am kind of disappointed that PG developed a "formula" and believes that everyone should fit into that formula. If you don't, you're out of the game.

A good hacker finds his ways to make the system works for him by breaking the rules (or by finding the hidden rules that seems to defy the written rules).

You ready to break PG's rules?

> 1. If you are not full time, then you are at a huge disadvantage

There are pros and cons. If you are your own investor, then working full time on one project is also putting all your eggs in the same basket.

Also having multiple projects allows to make a better prioritization (ie: remove crap) in my experience.

> 2. ... Your cofounder should be somebody that refuses to quit

My opinion is quite the contrary: I'd never pick a cofounder that refuses to quit when it makes sense.

'The Dip' is the obvious recommended book on that topic.