10 Rules for Web Startups
I was reading Ev’s blog and came across a great list of 10 rules for web startups. It is a fantastic read and really help put many of the issues we are going through in perspective. We have been tossing and turning our code base for the past several months, and finally ready to launch sometime entirely different. Keep an eye out for ChipIn Version 2, “the smarter way to collect money”
#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 That’s why the waterfall approach to building software is obsolete in favor agile techniques.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.