10 signs of smell in a startup
September 10, 2007 – 02:09I have been involved in more startup projects that I have fingers (and I have them all – you may check). Most of them rot.
Each time I start excited but as time passes, I see the pattern:
Your startup software project is in trouble, if
- it is evangelized by a businessman and not by a hacker (by Paul Graham definition of `hacker’)
- that person can’t answer a question “What is the first and the only function that should be present in the product?”
- project starts with rush to “staff it up”
- project is distributed between several organization charged with development (e.g. separated UI design and actual development)
- project “management” has no experience in product development and software development
- the above plus they ignore the developer’s feedback and ideas
- first version, however clunky, is not released in 1 month
- the first version released is not show to at least 10 people that are not related to this project and will actually use the product
- the first version requires a registration that requires an invite code
- time between any successive site updates after the first release is more that couple days
If there are more – you’re dead. Bury it and start over.
P.S. Bonus 11ths sign: designed product doesn’t have means to observe and analyze the behavior of its users
