<i>Learning from mistakes is much more powerful than learning from reading or doing it perfectly</i><p>What are start-up mistakes you've done over the years. There are lot of blog posts and lists, I am just curious of individual/personal ones here.<p>Resources: http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html
1. Trying to start solo<p>2. Not asking for help soon enough<p>3. Thinking that the market was broken but really just failing to understand the market<p>4. Never being "finished" enough to go live<p>5. Listening to experts<p>6. Completely and utterly underestimating how hard it would be to get customers.
If we would learn from mistakes, we would be the brightest person (Charly Brown)<p>Here a small fraction of my mistakes. And yes, I do sometimes repeat them.<p>* Not outsourcing my tax stuff.<p>* Distraction. :)<p>* Being too proud to ask for help.<p>* Slow in realizing that it is hard to sell inner value if the outer appearance sucks.<p>* Being too afraid to be seen as stupid.<p>* Listening to my tech-hacker peers when it comes to business. Or to care too much about their opinion.<p>* Not learning from non-tech business people around me.<p>* Not being interested in business but in technology.<p>* Over engineering.
1. Assuming I know what my users want.
2. Thinking that build-and-they'll-come will work.
3. Thinking that when build-and-they'll-come fails, that my product sucks.
I'll start<p>* Not surveying and making sure there is a market for it: A cooking recipe site with features allowing for evolving recipes... the market was too small, and after launch realized using a website along with cooking didn't go hand in hand.<p>* Hiring or bringing in skill over will: A rockstar coder is nothing if their not passionate, that just ended in pure disaster. Getting a passionate and willing person to learn and acquire skills works better than the other.