Felipe Lopes

I know most of you already read a lot of posts of people talking about how they failed and what they think should be done or what to not do when starting a startup. Well my post will be another one of this kind, sad, yes, sad, because even reading all of these posts I did a lot of the errors they mentioned there, so believe me, it’s never enough to read these posts and learn a new tip.

Don’t start a startup if you don’t believe and is not passionated for it

Ok, it seems obvious and it is, but I did it, believe me, I DID IT. It was not a good idea start a startup just because there was a good opportunity, it won’t take too long for you to figure out that it was not a good idea at all. It’s almost impossible at least for me to spend my time doing something I don’t like. Also if you have a day job you won’t quit it, because you are not passionated for the idea and you don’t want to give up of your day-to-day money.

Don’t work with something you don’t like

It’s very personal, but I completely dislike to work with something that I don’t like (it seems obvious too). When you start working with something you don’t like you don’t mind, probably because you are seeing the money in the end of the tunnel, however as much as you go you will be figuring out that the tunnel is not so short as you expected and the idea of keep working HARD to make your startup succeed won’t be valid anymore.

If you have a cofounder align the responsibilities and the dedication expected

Nothing could be more desmotivating than you dedicate your PRECIOUS time to a project, work very hard, and your cofounder don’t correspond with your expectations, don’t matter how. It make you feel that it is totally unfair, work so HARD to have everything shared with somebody that didn’t worked as HARD as you expected.
(I never talked with my cofounder to get some feedback of what I was doing, maybe he’s unsatisfied also, who knows?)

Release early release often

Well this is the most mentioned by every one that write about startups, so MEN believe me. If you release early and often you can get feedback from your customer and work in your product to fit the customer expectations, you can start to enter in the market sooner than the other competitors. In my case I entered in an opportunity as all of my competitors, but I forgot to release early and often so when I entered in the market it was already full, and I didn’t has the energy (neither the will) to keep the project running to try to suppress my competitors. If you want to read more about this subject Google It is a good idea.

Well I hope this don’t happen with anyone of you, I’m sure that there was a lot more points to mention, however the ones I mentioned were the ones I remembered quickly so they bother me more than the others. If you have any other points you think it’s important, comment below, there is a great possibility for me to add in another post.