Number 6 seems like the odd one out , there are plenty of businesses that were successful because they kept figuring out how to get things done cheaper and passing those savings on to consumers and undercutting the competition. Or companies who ate their margins to lower prices and gain market share.

Perhaps that rule could be rewritten as 6. Never drop your margins.

Sure, find ways to save costs and pass this on to your customers, but only when it improves your margins a bit.

Not every businessperson aims to create the next Walmart-scale business. You can live comfortably with a few tens of thousands of repeat customers.

yes, but that doesn't make competing on price an invalid strategy.

I don't think anyone should try to follow Branson's example. The man is gambler and an extreme case of return on luck. One early success and some antics that catapulted him into fame, then this notoriety allowed him to hire good managers (Ex-McKinsey types) to run and launch new businesses under his name. Read his book 'Losing My Virginity' and you'll understand why.

Let me out it another way - high school drop out commits to startup career, fights through years of slow growth, relentlessly resourceful in finding new ways to keep afloat, then has break through, willing to risk capitalising on break through, then manages cash flow from that to diversify and repeatedly identify and create new businesses, brining in talent and nurturing it to maximise return

So this is what the YC alumni should not do?

I would think the trouble lies with the fact that, with some frequency to be debated, a high school drop out commits to startup career, fights through years of slow growth, relentlessly resourceful in finding new ways to keep afloat, then doesn't have a break through. It's not clear that a break through always happens, and we risk into getting no true Scotsman territory with "well, if you were resourceful enough it would have happened."

Winning the lottery (by buying a lot of tickets, trying to find patterns, fighting through years of middling returns, relentlessly resourceful in finding new ways to not go bankrupt) is great if you do it, but expected outcomes are better for just plain working.

Of course, the whole VC scene is based on getting people to try to win the lottery...

I've read that book of his and also another one - Screw it, lets do it.

> allowed him to hire good managers (Ex-McKinsey types) to run and launch new businesses under his name

That still makes him a good businessman, IMO. I thought of changing the words to "good manager or delegator", but prefer the former. Employing good people and monitoring them is still the work of a businessman, methinks.