Cool postmortem!<p>I think items 2-5 are implications of #1: stay focused. My previous startup probably had a similar grand vision as Precog, but we decided to focus on a specific use case (credit card fraud) first. Even still, we found fraud was itself a broad problem with several subcategories; techniques that work well for an online marketplace for vacation rentals might not work for an e-commerce shop that sells shoes.<p>A template that I love is the one from Crossing the Chasm:<p>For [Target Customer] who has [Problem], our product is a [New Product Category] that provides [Key Benefit].
Unlike [Competitor], we have [Key Point of Differentiation].<p>Two declarative sentences. Sounds easy, but few startup founders succeed at this exercise the first time they try. However, once you can do this, just about everything else--selling to customers, convincing talented employees to join, raising funding from VCs--becomes vastly easier.<p>I wish more startup advice focused on basics like that.
Glad to read this. You seemed like a nice enough guy at the conferences I met you. Any comments on the infamous job applicant screen? Did that have any negative repurcusions or was it more of a distraction at that point?