Startup Lessons I Learned the Hard Way

Re:Startup Lessons I Learned the Hard Way by jeffmiller on Monday October 25, 2010 @07:20PM (#1832077)

This is the one I always have to learn the hard way: "Focus all your energy on solving a critical problem. Forget your idea."

It's so true, yet such a bitch to put into practice. Cognitive biases conspire against you--especially the sunk cost fallacy, because forgetting your idea often involves throwing away finished work.

My hope is that by getting burned by this enough times, I'll sharpen my spider sense about when I'm not focusing on solving a real problem.

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Re:Startup Lessons I Learned the Hard Way by sabat on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @01:12AM (#1833103)

Nobody cares about my idea, and they don’t care about your idea, either. Nobody.

I'm not sure why there is a difference, in Mr. Cancel's mind anyway, between "your idea" and a problem that needs to be solved. Your idea should = a problem to be solved. If it doesn't -- what the hell's your idea, then?

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Re:Startup Lessons I Learned the Hard Way by jeffmiller on Tuesday October 26, 2010 @01:54AM (#1833209)

Dream versus reality. Your idea always starts out as solving some supposedly critical problem, but sometimes you're the only person with that problem. Or, the idea evolves over time and takes on bloat. I interpret dcancel's comment as: find a demonstrably critical problem that people have, then focus like a laser on solving that one thing. It's damn good advice.

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