Rules for startups

<i>"11. NEVER EVER EVER hire a PR firm. A PR firm will call or email people in the publications, shows and websites you already watch, listen to and read. Those people publish their emails. Whenever you consume any information related to your field, get the email of the person publishing it and send them an email introducing yourself and the company. Their job is to find new stuff. They will welcome hearing from the founder instead of some PR flack. Once you establish communications with that person, make yourself available to answer their questions about the industry and be a source for them. If you are smart, they will use you."</i><p>It always amazes me how much money startups spend on PR instead of development or other necessities. Cuil comes to mind.

Rule 0: These are advices, generally true, but not necessarily in your case. Use your best judgement instead of blindly following them.

Re coffee &#38; sodas: Cuban should check out the relative health effects of the antioxidants in coffee and the high fructose corn syrup in sodas and retract that idiotic comment.

How about: $20 coffee machine, (free) tap water, and a $10 ground coffee in a can from the grocery store?<p>It's not that complicated.

handing out 100 dollar bills seems like something that pets.com would do.

This is one of my favorite of Mark's articles on HN. The advice about PR firms and cost cutting was great, and the bit about doing what you love, rather than something you're looking for an exit plan was even better.

on schwag:<p>I was kindof thinking of distributing free T-shirts when I speak at LUGs and/or to customers who express interest. At $5-$10 each, well, it might be a dumb idea, I'm not sure. Average customer gets me $10/month or so in revenue.<p>See, I was thinking that my target market (cheap Linux hobbyists and cheap micro-businesses) might actually wear free shirts. I would think the value of the schwag as advertising directly correlates to how much it is used in public by the recipient.<p>The thing is, as I'm self funded, the credit crunch doesn't mean anything, so long as I keep my consulting gigs. I'm buying hardware right now like it was 1999. This next month, after I get my new capacity up, I am going to need to spend some money on advertising.<p>I do ok for the relevant google searches, and my target market is very technical (yes, I could vastly expand my market by making it easier. I'm working on it, but my core customer base is people like me- people who don't click on ads.) so I don't think buying 'sponsored results' from google will make much difference.

Great article and, IMO, much better than that recent one by Calcanis on saving money with your startup.<p>Interesting, I was seriously considering a PR firm for one of my startups. I had met a PR guy from the Bay Area at a wedding and considered using his company. Good to know.

"Shoot yourself before you spend money on an expresso machine. Coffee is for closers." Awesome. But he follows that up with "Sodas are free." Wha? Please share your free soda hacks.

This sounds more like religion/zealotry than it does startup advice. Just because you have a good business idea doesn't mean you have to commit to it for life. Nothing wrong with having an exit strategy in mind. It may be years before you see it, and that does have to be OK.<p>But if Cuban is so gung-ho, why isn't he still at his startup?