Revenue could be fatal: 3 reasons your startup should consider waiting

This is the stupidest drivel I have ever read. If you brought this up outside of the inane SV bubble, you would be laughed out of the room.<p>They even state "for many apps, like Instagram [...]" as a good example when revenue is not needed. I'm flabbergasted.

The post is solid, but one of the things I like most in here are the signs of looking at <i>where</i> revenue came from (the comment about only 1% of revenue coming from the entry-level plan).<p>I'd love to hear more from Richard about how they tested the impacts of moving from the $5 to the free plan.<p>And yes, it's definitely a solid strategy to delay revenue for users. I'm sure someone will argue this is Web 1.0-bubbly thinking. But, provided you're doing it in the way that Richard suggests, it's not totally insane. Twitter might not have found a great business yet, but at least they've gotten past one of the big hurdles -- getting people to come to the party.

Pesky revenue, always trying to get in the way of creating a business!<p>Might as well take it a step further and consider waiting on building a product. Why define your business with a real product when you can, like Zombo.com, do anything?

I think the disconnect, and then perhaps vitriol, comes from the fact that these are small, stand alone companies. Large companies take this strategy all the time with a new group or division "Don't worry about revenue yet. Build a great product, get to market, get solid adoption." Nobody argues when MSFT takes that approach with say the Xbox. It's thought of as wise investments. In this scenario the VC's are acting like the wealthy corporate mothership. It just feels counter intuitive though.<p>If you don't want to take money or you're not in a market that is strongly viral then obviously you have to be concerned about revenue much earlier. If you are though then focusing on revenue in the short run may be detrimental.

"A Stable (but perhaps unexciting) Business - This is where most people end up."<p>Really? "Most people" with a new business end up with stable but unexciting businesses?<p>I suspect most people end in failure, not Stable Business. In a post full of deeply questionable logic, this little gem takes the cake for me. I suspect some anecdotal evidence from otehr commenters will back this up or that there is a bevy of statistics to prove that this is true, even in the rarefied atmosphere of web companies.

Every business and business model is different. This should be considered with a grain of salt. It is not a one size fit all