a bigger possible outcome if, against all odds, it actually succeeds! This doesn’t mean you always have to swing for the fences, but make sure you’re first at bat is not a bunt.
4. Don’t think too big.
Paradoxically, I’ve also seen a lot of pre-seed stage startups get into trouble by thinking too big. It’s awesome to have a big vision of what something can become (see #3), but the cold hard truth is that at 9:00 am on the first day of your startup, it will be you and your co-founders (if any) staring at a laptop with a blank screen. What makes starting a company so challenging (and rewarding) is having to bootstrap up towards your own-the-world vision, figuring out innovative ways to scamper up, around, or under the roadblocks along the way. The danger is that you’ll be so focused on the forest that you you’ll forget that trees even exist. When you talk about your plan, it’s not just the big picture that counts—you have to know how you get there from here.
5. Don’t build a product without a distribution plan.
Building a great product has become mere table stakes to the game, so the real play is figuring out how the heck anyone is going to hear about your product in the first place. If your distribution plan is praying for virality, I can assure you that you are betting on some extremely long odds. On the other hand, there are a plethora of old-world businesses with plenty of customers (and under-monetized web traffic if that’s your game) who are facing serious pain points in the new digital economy. Finding the right synergistic distribution partnership is becoming the key differentiator between payday and bust.
Now, for every single one of these DONT’S, there are dozens of great companies that totally violated my “rules” and went on to conquer the world anyway! The one true Golden Rule for startups is that there isn’t a Golden Rule. But I think it’s wise to try to maximize your odds in general. And in those cases where you do choose to fight an uphill battle you can go into it with your eyes wide open and your guard up!
