Characteristics of Failing Startups
Today I was at a talk by young swiss web entrepreneurs. Mostly, their presentations revolved around the mistakes they made when they started out.
The founder of jobs.ch, Thomas Sterchi, initially wanted to publish a magazine with job listings. This didn't work, since it would have required lots of readers from the start: companies won't advertise in a magazine that doesn't get read.
Marc Bourgeois, founder of endurit.ch, an IT outsourcing company, first wanted to build set-top boxes for TVs that you could do online banking with (this was 1997).
These initial ideas both needed a large initial investment and a customer base. Interesting, I thought, and made a little chart. Start-ups that work are on the lower left side.
The founder of jobs.ch, Thomas Sterchi, initially wanted to publish a magazine with job listings. This didn't work, since it would have required lots of readers from the start: companies won't advertise in a magazine that doesn't get read.
Marc Bourgeois, founder of endurit.ch, an IT outsourcing company, first wanted to build set-top boxes for TVs that you could do online banking with (this was 1997).
These initial ideas both needed a large initial investment and a customer base. Interesting, I thought, and made a little chart. Start-ups that work are on the lower left side.
2 Comments:
The T's say, "g is going to do something very successful," esp. due to chart-making abilities.
http://www.paulgraham.com/hiring.html
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