How to Start a Startup?

Paul Graham – founder of Viaweb (bought by Yahoo! in the late 1990s) and author of Hackers & Painters wrote an essay on "How to Start a Startup?"

He lists some very interesting points for startups started by geeks. He focuses on three key things:
- Good People

What matters is not ideas, but the people who have them. Good people can fix bad ideas, but good ideas can't save bad people.

- Make stuff people want, and

If you can't understand users, however, you should either learn how or find a co-founder who can. That is the single most important issue for technology startups, and the rock that sinks more of them than anything else.

- Spend as little money as possible.

When and if you get an infusion of real money from investors, what should you do with it? Not spend it, that's what. In nearly every startup that fails, the proximate cause is running out of money.

In technology, the low end always eats the high end. It's easier to make an inexpensive product more powerful than to make a powerful product cheaper. So the products that start as cheap, simple options tend to gradually grow more powerful till, like water rising in a room, they squash the "high-end" products against the ceiling.

Thanks to Brad Feld for the link .