His advice about lawyers is bad. Very bad. Not incorporating properly can sink you quickly, especially if co-founder disputes come up. I've seen perfectly good startups get sunk that wouldn't have had they just gotten the founder contracts right in the beginning (especially with respect to vesting).<p>They cost so little in the grand scheme of things and take so little time. I don't know what he means about them becoming advisers. Mine have never advised me in any unnecessary capacity, and I suspect he just has experience (first or second hand) with some Saul Goodman type.<p>Get an experienced startup lawyer to help you incorporate at a bare minimum. Many will even defer something like your first $15k of fees (more than enough to get started) in the hopes of earning more business later when you turn into the next YouTube.
I totally agree with the "negative people" part. I once gave the groupon elevator pitch to a relative who knows nothing about what's going on in terms of start ups or anything internet. His response was it was the the stupidest idea ever and he thought I should focus my efforts on something more worth while. I then told him they started 4 years ago and it's a billion dollar company. His reaction was priceless.<p>I mention this story because everyone will always be negative if they have never heard of what you are doing. That's just human nature. As entrepreneurs we have to keep plugging forward amidst the criticism and build our dreams.
#1 should always be medical insurance coverage. Large corporations get group plans at big discounts, and then offer it to their employees for free or hugely discounted rates that aren't taxed at all. Big corporations give health care coverage away for free as a perk.<p>Good luck getting the same plan at a start-up. Buying an individual plan is grossly expensive, especially if you're married with kids. Even if you're lucky enough to be at a startup with a group plan, you probably won't get it for free. And your company surely won't get the big discounts Dell, IBM, and HP get.
He's right about some of those but others are just ridiculous. Sure, being home with your family or socializing with other people at an event might not contribute much to your startup, but you need to relax sometimes. It's dangerous to confuse that with work but if you don't want to burn out, it's also dangerous to work all the time without any break.
> <i>8. Agencies - This ranges from people who want to build your product to those who want to file your R&D tax credits. You can spend a lot of time talking to agencies, as there are a LOT of them around. Some are genuinely useful partners. You’ll often have speakers at Hacker News London espousing the benefits of using an agency that worked wonders and had aligned incentives. And that is the key, make sure your incentives and those of people you work with are aligned. Bonus structures do not work. If people fail, there’s got to be pain. There will be for you, after all, if your startup fails.</i><p>Well, I hope GrantTree falls into the "genuinely useful partners" category! I'm not a fan of development agencies for startups, but for tax and grants getting a specialist firm involved makes sense, imho.<p>Not sure about the title, btw... are those really ways startups get screwed, or just aspects of running a startup?
I strongly clicked with the Investor part. It's funny that every one and their mother is saying they are part of a seed fund these days, while they do not invest in companies that have less than 2 years/15 employees/numerous clients/revenue in the 7 digits already.<p>And, maybe could he add :
"11. Hacker News. After reading it for a while and understanding a bit better what it means to run a startup, just stop reading it all day long and focus on your customers. I've seen startups fail because the founders hired people only to monitor HN and report on interesting stories"
This seems like bad advice from someone who is not especially experienced at building startups. As he suggests, there are kernels of knowledge but the recommendations are unbalanced and in many cases suggest he made newbie mistakes (e.g. - I didn't know how to manage my lawyer, so you should not hire one at all!).<p>There seems to be an abundance of advice out there regarding startups from people who have very limited experience, and it's a bit worrying to see it get voted up on hackernews so easily.
Over a sample size of about 10 million page views, our top 4 referring domains of all time are all exclusively social media, and account for a total of around 30% of our visits. Twitter is the most engaging, on average Twitter referals view 4.5 pages per visit.<p>I think it's easy to dismiss social media, it's gotten quite clichéd, it's sometimes dull, it's sometimes frustrating, but if you understand the differences between each channel and utilise them properly they can have great benefits.
Schmerg has already stated #11. Here's my #12.<p>#12... Reading blogs/articles about startups. I'm guilty of this as well. Its ok to ready every once and a while, but the constant research on startup life does take you out of your element.<p>Put your head down and get to work! Its all up to you and you alone. Make the effort, and get to coding/building. The rest will fall into place.
Can somebody more experienced in the matter attest there are no seed money in the UK? I was under impression that Launch48, Seedcamp and others do a great job here.
Just a friendly reminder about the title of the submission from the HN guidelines:
<i>If the original title begins with a number or number + gratuitous adjective, we'd appreciate it if you'd crop it. E.g. translate "10 Ways To Do X" to "How To Do X," and "14 Amazing Ys" to "Ys." Exception: when the number is meaningful, e.g. "The 5 Platonic Solids."</i>
Y Combinator is different from other accelerators in that it isn't an incubator. This is part of what sets it apart IMO.<p>I think that TechStars is an exception to the rule about accelerators and incubators being little more than a distraction, but you're entitled to your opinion. The benefits of Y Combinator are much clearer.