This was written by Evan Williams.
He started a thing called Blogger.
Then he went on to start a thing called Twitter.
#1: Be
Narrow
Focus
on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be
useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life
difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many
advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small
things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you
think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself
when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there's
less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there's a resistance
to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If
you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can
broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage.
#2: Be
Different
Ideas are in the air. There are lots of people thinking
about—and probably working on—the same thing you are. And one of them is
Google. Deal with it. How? First of all, realize that no sufficiently
interesting space will be limited to one player. In a sense, competition
actually is good—especially to legitimize new markets. Second, see #1—the
specialist will almost always kick the generalist's ass. Third, consider doing
something that's not so cutting edge. Many highly successful companies—the
aforementioned big G being one—have thrived by taking on areas that everyone
thought were done and redoing them right. Also? Get a good, non-generic name.
Easier said than done, granted. But the most common mistake in naming is trying
to be too descriptive, which leads to lots of hard-to-distinguish names. How
many blogging companies have "blog" in their name, RSS companies
"feed," or podcasting companies "pod" or "cast"?
Rarely are they the ones that stand out.
#3: Be
Casual
We're
moving into what I call the era of the "Casual Web" (and casual content creation). This is much
bigger than the hobbyist web or the professional web. Why? Because people have
lives. And now, people with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the
really big home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed,
help—people's everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or identity
change. Flickr enables personal publishing among millions of folks who
would never consider themselves personal publishers—they're just sharing
pictures with friends and family, a casual activity. Casual games are huge. Skype enables
casual conversations.
#4: Be
Picky
Another
perennial business rule, and it applies to everything you do: features,
employees, investors, partners, press opportunities. Startups are often too
eager to accept people or ideas into their world. You can almost always afford
to wait if something doesn't feel just right, and false negatives are usually
better than false positives. One of Google's biggest strengths—and sources of
frustration for outsiders—was their willingness to say no to opportunities,
easy money, potential employees, and deals.
#5: Be
User-Centric
User experience is everything. It always has been, but it's
still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don't know user-centered
design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it.
Get your whole company on board. Better to iterate a hundred times to get the
right feature right than to add a hundred more. The point of Ajax is that it
can make a site more responsive, not that it's sexy. Tags can make things
easier to find and classify, but maybe not in your application. The point of an
API is so developers can add value
for users, not to impress the geeks. Don't get sidetracked by technologies or
the blog-worthiness of your next feature. Always focus on the user and all will
be well.
#6: Be
Self-Centered
Great products almost always come from someone scratching their
own itch. Create something you want to exist in the world. Be a user of your
own product. Hire people who are users of your product. Make it better based on
your own desires. (But don't trick yourself into thinking you are your user, when it comes to
usability.) Another aspect of this is to not get seduced into doing deals with
big companies at the expense or your users or at the expense of making your
product better. When you're small and they're big, it's hard to say no, but see
#4.
#7: Be
Greedy
It's
always good to have options. One of the best ways to do that is to have income.
While it's true that traffic is now again actually worth
something, the give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy
stamps an expiration date on your company's ass. In other words, design
something to charge for into your product and start taking money within 6
months (and do it with PayPal). Done right, charging money can actually
accelerate growth, not impede it, because then you have something to fuel
marketing costs with. More importantly, having money coming in the door puts
you in a much more powerful position when it comes to your next round of funding
or acquisition talks. In fact, consider whether you need to have a free version
at all. The TypePad approach—taking the
high-end position in the market—makes for a great business model in the right
market. Less support. Less scalability concerns. Less abuse. And much higher
margins.
#8: Be
Tiny
It's
standard web startup wisdom by now that with the substantially lower costs to starting something on the web, the difficulty of IPOs, and the willingness of the
big guys to shell out for small teams doing innovative
stuff, the most likely end game if you're successful is acquisition.
Acquisitions are much easier if they're small. And small acquisitions are
possible if valuations are kept low from the get go. And keeping valuations low
is possible because it doesn't cost much to start something anymore (especially
if you keep the scope narrow). Besides the obvious techniques, one way to do
this is to use turnkey services to lower your overhead—Administaff, ServerBeach, web apps, maybe even Elance.
#9: Be
Agile
You
know that old saw about a plane flying from California to Hawaii being off
course 99% of the time—but constantly correcting? The same is true of
successful startups—except they may start out heading toward Alaska. Many
dot-com bubble companies that died could have eventually been successful had
they been able to adjust and change their plans instead of running as fast as
they could until they burned out, based on their initial assumptions. Pyra was
started to build a project-management app, not Blogger. Flickr's company was
building a game. Ebay was going to sell auction software. Initial assumptions
are almost always wrong. That's why the waterfall approach to building software
is obsolete in favor agile techniques. The same
philosophy should be applied to building a company.
#10:
Be Balanced
What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled,
balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing
nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work. Yes, high levels of
commitment are crucial. And yes, crunch times come and sometimes require an
inordinate, painful, apologies-to-the-SO amount of work. But it can't be all
the time. Nature requires balance for health—as do the bodies and minds who
work for you and, without which, your company will be worthless. There is no
better way to maintain balance and lower your stress that I've found than David Allen's GTD process. Learn it. Live it.
Make it a part of your company, and you'll have a secret weapon.
#11
(bonus!): Be Wary
Overgeneralized lists of business "rules" are not to
be taken too literally. There are exceptions to everything.
« Stay in Beta Mode Forever. (Or longer if possible) | Home | Call your heroes. They have telephones too »
Subscribe via RSS to the conversation related to this post.
The comments to this entry are closed.
Spooky, I printed this out when @ev first blogged it. I have been clearing up my office this week and found it and have it pinned up on my wall. Wise words indeed.
Posted by: Jay Greasley | 01/21/2010 at 12:46 PM
Excellent list of tips! The user-centric focus is something I probably need to work on. I haven't given it too much thought. I also agree with your point about staying narrowly focused.
Posted by: Tim Moon | 01/26/2010 at 03:37 PM
All so true! All important points and great advice. #4 is hard, but a must follow if you can
Posted by: Stevetoldme | 01/30/2010 at 05:47 AM
Great advice for those of us trying to find and follow the best way to do business in today's market place. This is especially good stuff for small businesses. We have to get all the edge we can to compete with big business and big budget.
Thanks for the post.
Posted by: Terry | 02/01/2010 at 07:07 PM
I love this post.
Posted by: Sherry | 02/02/2010 at 04:31 AM
Awesome article. For someone who is starting up his own online business, this is great advice.
Posted by: Slick | 02/11/2010 at 03:54 PM
It truly is all about focus. I just spent a great deal of time removing features and offerings from a program I am working on. In essence, we simplified. Now we are focused and we have carved out a beautiful nice for our business to thrive in. This was an awesome read thanks!
Posted by: Justin Popovic | 02/26/2010 at 01:05 PM
I completely agree with this blog. We are self funding a new SaaS/cloud integration startup and it is a painstakingly slow process since first time around nobody will believe you. Yes, the big challenge is to keep everyone thinking small at first just to get the beta out the door.
Posted by: Mike Clarke | 03/07/2010 at 12:28 AM
I've worked in digital for the past year and a half and I have been tempted on several occasions to set-up on my own but I still have a lot to learn. But I completely agree with all of the above, because its the net your competing with not only those on your high street but potentially everyone in the world doing the same as you so a USP is even more critical online than it is anywhere else. Pity you can't buy patents for services. :(
Posted by: Fitness freq | 04/13/2010 at 09:21 AM
I just heard about this circus last week. Casual Cal definitely will
not be affiliated with UniverSoul Circus for 2005. I also heard the
boxer Evander Holifield (he lives in Atlanta) was one of the
investors, along with others and maybe the new TV station called TV
One.
Posted by: generic viagra | 04/27/2010 at 08:59 PM
Yes, build a website can be done quickly, but building a reputation takes a long time
Posted by: stainless steel rice cooker | 04/29/2010 at 04:13 AM
agreed, reputation needs to be guarded. once lost can never be rebuilt
Posted by: [email protected] | 04/29/2010 at 11:51 AM
But I completely agree with all of the above,
Posted by: foreplay games | 04/30/2010 at 02:23 PM
the blog says things that make you think as a young one, things that are happening now and most times we see no reason not to care a bit ....
Posted by: dental health center | 04/30/2010 at 03:14 PM
A good business provides stability to the home and family. To have a good business is necessary to work very hard, with great effort and sacrifice, but the results will always be very good
Posted by: investment costa rica | 07/06/2010 at 09:54 PM
I loved this post! Thanks for the tips about different varieties of cukes, this sounds like a wonderful recipe. Hope to see you at Food BlogHer!
Posted by: louis vuitton bag | 07/09/2010 at 11:37 AM
I loved this post! Thanks for the tips about different varieties of cukes, this sounds like a wonderful recipe. Hope to see you at Food BlogHer!
Posted by: louis vuitton bag | 07/09/2010 at 11:42 AM
Great article Evan! I totally agree with your advice. More than anything, if you are passionate about the niche you are entering, it makes it much easier to succeed with it.
Posted by: Breakfast Nook Furniture | 07/21/2010 at 02:39 AM
Costa Rica is an excellent country to invest in real estate its economy is very stable, being a peaceful country and have their exuberant nature makes it much more attractive to invest
Posted by: costa rica best investment | 07/29/2010 at 01:32 AM
Be sure not to overlook #10! David Allen's GTD has been a game changer for me.
Posted by: Steve Lack | 09/08/2010 at 03:38 AM
Terrific list and explanations. Thank you.
Posted by: Mat | 09/13/2010 at 11:58 PM
This group of lists are amazing! Very simple, yet so effective!
Better print this one out and paste it on my wall. It really helps. Thanks a lot for the post!
Posted by: Nathaniel @ online project management certificate | 11/03/2010 at 11:06 AM
Be Different and Interesting ...this is a key for success .
Cheers,
Gynexin
Posted by: Gynexin | 11/04/2010 at 10:21 PM
Don't be everything to everybody. So true. And there are still people out there looking to make millions with "every click I make 2 cents!!" hyped up mlm....yucky. Bo focused and follow your instincts. Turkeys bring you down, that's why they don't take risks. I love this post!
Posted by: JanRossiCO | 12/01/2010 at 08:19 PM
Don't try to diversify too much! Great advice in my opinion... good read.
Posted by: Web Deisgn Horsham | 12/03/2010 at 10:36 PM