I knew 2010 was going to be a creative year and it seems I didn't lie to myself (so neither to you). I'm glad of few things I did well in the past but I also made loads of critical mistakes.
If I sometimes naturally avoided those errors, I still wanted to note them so it's always clear in my mind as I did make some of them twice or more. So here are some of the biggest errors I did while developing products and leading entrepreneurship projects. You can check the "Experience page" on gregorytalon.com to know more about what I did, acomplished, failed...
But for now let me give some lessons to ... myself!
1. Thinking too much about the potential versus current delivery.
You've got a vision, it's great Gregory, you know what you want your thing to become in the next years, but hey! Get real man, do you have what it needs? Not missing any resource? It's not about how many ideas you have, it's about how many you deliver.
2. Choosing the coolest language for my application (in that case, Ruby on Rails), which means taking the risk of not finding enough developer to deliver.
Activating a cool and talented developer is cool Gregory, securing your long-term product delivery is what you need.
3. Thinking that a developer can deliver in a timely manner just on his free time.
Even for the alpha version, your lead developer can't efficiently work on several codes within the same day Gregory. Find a solution for him to dedicate at least 3 full days a week on what you want him to develop.
4. Planning too optimistically or sometimes not planning at all.
Things always take longer than expected. Own your delivery, don't ask your developer to be accountable.
5. Thinking I can build a very ambitious product without any financial backing (and negligible personal capital investment).
Stop dreaming Gregory. Your development team needs to live just like you. Profitability will also take time to come.
6. Not being totally fearless
Doubts are fortunate, fear must be forbidden.
7. Trying to deliver the perfect thing on day 1
Start simple; iterate fast, you did it well few times.
8. Pushing bugs and issues back to the next day.
The longer you wait, the longer it will take to fix.
9. Not having a price.
This one is always a tough one cause your model always evolve in the first 2 years but make sure your business model is clear and ready to evaluate before dreaming your product roadmap.
10. Being too romantic about business & start-up dynamic.
Be 100% rational. Solve problems.
I think that's it.
Hope it will help you too,
As you know I'm also a musician, I play drums for several artists including a rock band called Dead Pirates. Let's a have watch of Wood, the first music video directed by Simon and our band leader / famous illustrator, McBess. We'll be playing in Roma for Bangart.it Magazine end of May, so I wanted to celebrate!
Gregory
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