Creating a Product Focused Startup Culture

"Lastly, do not worry about competitors. Even if someone copied your idea completely, there are three areas competitors can never copy: 1) your team; 2) speed of product innovation of your team; 3) community of passionate users."<p>To stomach this startup mentality this quote drives home to me the most. I just came to the realization that there is a new product out that does what I want to do but not exactly. I put myself in a small panic/"is is worth it" kind of mentality but knowing that if something like this stops me from trying to accomplish my dream, then I dont have what it takes to start a startup. I won't be able to live with myself if I stop now and always have "what if's" floating around in my head. After reading this excerpt im fired up, im not going to let this speed bump stand in my way.

"Keep a keynote file of UX/UI examples: I take screenshots of websites, features, UI design, etc that I almost always reference while we build our site." --&#62; This has been a major theme of my last month; paying more attention to the way I capture and keep organized. A little work as you go definitely saves time later, especially as Michael pointed out competitors cannot copy the 'speed of product innovation of your team.'

Lots of useful general advice about building products. Cutting features is definitely the hardest part of his recommendations. Especially when a product is small and easy to enhance, it's tempting to add <i>just one more feature</i>. You just need to keep reminding yourself that getting it out the door will focus your efforts on what people actually want, and you'll know for sure whether that feature is worth building.

I find the competing trends going on in the valley very interesting. It seems that there are still far more engineering-driven startups than product or customer.<p>Just last week I was visiting a startup where the lead engineer expressed outright disdain for product.<p>It'll be interesting to see which philosophy becomes dominant in 10 years.