The best solutions and worst mistakes of Internet startups (part two)

The best and worst decisions (part two).

( Part One ).

Mark Fletcher : I asked many successful Internet entrepreneurs about what they learned by discovering and supporting the work of their Internet companies. I asked about their best decisions and the worst mistakes, and I received many practical answers. Here is the second series of answers - from Mark Kanter, Greg Linden and Mark Moore.
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Marc Canter (Marc Canter).

Mark Kanter founded MacroMind, later renamed Macromedia. He had a great influence on the emerging "multimedia industry" in the late 80s - early 90s. Since that time, Mark has worked in the field of scalable content, interactive television and what is now called “Ajax” - all this during the era of the “dot com” era. Since 2001, Mark has been developing the idea of ​​“structuring the digital lifestyle” (digital lifestyle aggregation) and helping to create open standards in social networks and blogging. Mark is the CEO of Broadband Mechanics . He runs the Voice of Mark blog.

My best decision : I must say that, as an entrepreneur, I am convinced every day that the decisions I take on a whim are the most correct. When it came to terms, making a plan in advance what would happen or where there would be the most money, I always found myself 10 years ahead of everyone. Therefore, the question was how to slow down yourself and be ready by the time the rest of the world appears on the horizon. This is exactly what is happening today with social networks in the field of open source.

My worst mistake : Rely on the efforts of the community and allow it to interfere with my inner ideas about future milestones. This was an obstacle to success. You cannot rely on free labor. You have to pay people to work for you. This is the only way to get ready-made code.

Greg Linden (Greg Linden).

Greg is the founder of Findory, a service that uses personal information about a person to help readers find the information they would otherwise have missed. Prior to this, Greg worked at Amazon, where he wrote a recommendation module and led the team that developed the personalization system for the site. Greg is a blog " Geeking with Greg ".

Work on the task whose solution you would like to see. If you do this, you will feel inspired every day, no matter what happens. I liked the task that the company “Findory” tried to solve - to help people find the information they need by studying the behavior of each person - and I received satisfaction from every minute of work in the company.

Be thrifty, but not too much. Looking back, I think I was too thrifty, launching “Findory”. Budget planning is an equation with the loss of a shortage of resources in one maximum and the loss of a waste of money in another. “Findory” has been spending money very economically for a long time, but at the same time it was experiencing a shortage of resources, slow growth, restrictions on hiring new people and on the way of development.

Mark Moore (Mark Moore).

Mark Moore is the CEO and co-founder of One True Media , where he is now responsible for the overall concept, business and product strategy, as well as the team and projects needed for this work. Prior to this, Mark was among the founders of three startups - Listen.com, MilleCom, and Diba, Inc., where he selected successful development teams. While working for Oracle, Mark began his career developing the core of the media server and database ( author's note: I am an investor of One True Media ).

Best Solution : I’m convinced everyone that the best solution for a startup is to start a product without delay, collect feedback and quickly repeat the cycle. I understand that not all companies are able to work in this mode (some require more time to create and develop due to difficulties with their products, etc.), but the closer you can work to this method, the more you chances of success. In my case, I found that your initial understanding of the business plan turns out to be incorrect after 6 months. Therefore, start as soon as possible - present your product on the market, and only then you can start writing a real business plan that will work and which has already been tested. Good luck to those entrepreneurs who want to become inconspicuous for a year - make sure that they will finance you for one more.

The biggest mistake : Oh, the list is very long. So, I would say that one of my biggest mistakes concerned the conclusion of partnership agreements at the time when the company was just beginning its work. Every entrepreneur will be happy to sign a contract with a large company that gives him access to a huge market, or simply gives a solid income for the company. The problem is that there is no free cheese. Large companies simply will not open up great opportunities for a small company. And if they do this, they will first be convinced that the lion’s share of revenues will remain in their hands (or that they will be able to replace the startup with their own). In most cases, these relationships are deceiving expectations, because they do not work (this is just an experiment for a large company and due to lack of effort it ends in failure) and at the same time they can serve as a great distraction for a start-up only. Therefore, my advice - beware of big partners - they know their business very well and will not just feed you free cheese. There are exceptions to this rule, but they are few - just make sure that you get something valuable in return from your partner before moving on.

Once again I thank Greg and two Markov. Let's continue the series next week.

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