Reading Paul's "The Hardest Lessons for Startups to Learn"

Original article is here.

I digest serveral important points:

1. Work hard
Perhaps the most important reason to release early, though, is that it makes you work harder.

2. Keep thinking of improvements
For example, I doubt many people at Yahoo (or Google for that matter) realized how much better web mail could be till Paul Buchheit showed them.

3. Tell vistors what your site is about by showing them
A startup should be able to explain in one or two sentences exactly what it does... if you have something impressive, try to put it on the front page, because that's the only one most visitors will see...

4. Three biggest threat: internal disputes, inertia and ignoring users. The worst is ignoring users.
If you want a recipe for a startup that's going to die, here it is: a couple of founders who have some great idea they know everyone is going to love, and that's what they're going to build, no matter what.

5. Commitment
The only way to convince everyone that you're ready to fight to the death is actually to be ready to.

6. There is always room
The only limit would be the number of people who want to work that hard.

7. Don't get your hopes up
when you hear someone say the words "we want to invest in you" or "we want to acquire you," I want the following phrase to appear automatically in your head: don't get your hopes up. Just continue running your company as if this deal didn't exist.
The way to succeed in a startup is to focus on the goal of getting lots of users, and keep walking swiftly toward it while investors and acquirers scurry alongside trying to wave money in your face.

8. SPEED!!!
Economically, a startup is best seen not as a way to get rich, but as a way to work faster... What's important about startups is the speed. By compressing the dull but necessary task of making a living into the smallest possible time, you show respect for life, and there is something grand about that.