Everything About Startups in Ten Bullet Points . . . Really!

By Jay Shifley

• Cool products do not make a business. Solutions to problems do.
• Life is too short to spend time and money on a cool product no one wants.
• Risk is necessary, but can be minimized
• Early adopters are key to measuring the success of your solution.
• Fund raising isn't necessary until you know that your solution works.
• Your startup model will normally go through several iterations before you find something that works.
• It's not your customers' job to tell you what they want, it is your job to discover what they want.
• Your customers don't set your prices, you do.
• Design a minimum viable product (MVP) and test it. If it doesn't sell, tweak it, redesign it, or abandon it.
• The goal of your business model is not to get it right the first time, but to discover a way to make money by solving a problem before you run out of resources. Most businesses go through several iterations before getting it right.