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 gPod

Big news at the gHeadquarters: Joining the gDevices (the gCellPhone, gStick, gBunny, etc.) is the gPod (as pictured on the right)! After purchase, the box said "iPod", which must be a mistake, especially now that iPods are about as trendsetty as opening new blogs. The cute blue cover is courtesy of LT, who took a quick look at the gPod's contents and decided it was made up "cool-sounding german titles and teen-age girl music".

Yeah baby yeah

What a fantastic time it is to start a blog - now that everyone else has one. Clearly, a static homepage bores people, so here I am, buzzing with ideas about funky social commentary. Starting tomorrow.