7 + 3 Lessons From Failed Startups
Great Inc post on lessons from a failed startup include:
1. Consider the entire experience
2. Raise money when you can not when you need too
3. Don't give away equity too soon or too fast
Read the other 4 from the Inc post: https://www.inc.com/yoram-solomon/7-lessons-you-should-learn-from-my-failed-startup.html
I'd add three of my own lessons from my "failed startup":
1. Don't think in terms of success and failure, win and lose. Think about impact, learning, and potential. Startups require a more nuanced sense of win/lose.
2. Don't hire your friends even if they are the right people because you are probably blind to faults, issues, or other "round peg in square hole" problems with friends.
3. Create any startup in collaboration with customers. Don't do the "mad inventor" thing and go off and think you've created a better mousetrap. You won't. Instead, collaborate and build on what you learn from real customers facing immediate problems.
Google's Jigsaw ...Yes, And...
I'm following the rules of improv here because it is unclear what else to do. Google's move at least as reported on TechCrunch doesn't say if the new accelerator, and there is a word that can cover 1,000 sins, is externally or internally focused. Let's hope both (at least).
Hard to know if startups should jump for joy or cry in their beer with such an opaque announcement. Startups will cry in their beer anyway, so we will wait and see.