Nir Markus

Most entrepreneurs who build a startup, have a huge vision for their startup.

This vision leads to a sophisticated product that easily make it too confusing for users and too hard to navigate initially.

This leads to a product that eventually fails to attract traction.

Instead of doing that, start with a simple idea for your product and build on top of it when users start to arrive.

This will allow you to verify your idea, to increase user adoption quicker and to minimize the time to market of your product.

Assuming users are coming and engaging with the product and you see an increase in traffic, it’s time to add additional features.

Every additional feature you add, needed to be deeply considered.
Will it confuse the users? Will it complicate the product? Will it prevent new users from coming?
Even after you gave it a thought and decided on the right move, you still might be wrong. The best way to know if you are right or wrong is to use a/b testing for the new features.

So keep it simple at start, and then grow it.

Everybody thinks that macbooks are more expensive than other laptops.

Well, I thought so as well, however a few weeks ago, I figured out that it’s not really accurate.

Let me tell you about my macbook experience.
I bought my first Macbook in Late 2008, 13” Aluminum just after it was announced, I was very excited and it provided me with a lot of joy during the last few years.
The price I paid for it was $1400. Comparing to other laptops with it’s qualities I paid a few hundreds more.

I sold it 3 years and 8 months later on eBay for $550.  It means that it lost about 22% of it’s value per year. (I’m ignoring other factors like interest and inflation)

This calculation is only a single example, however I doubt that any other laptop will be able to retain it’s value as good as that.

What about the ease of sale? It was sold within 2 hours of posting the ad on ebay.
Why? Search ebay for any specific laptop model and then search for any specific macbook model - you will be surprised to find a big second hand market for any macbook model while for most other laptop it’s almost non-existent.

So next time when you want to buy a cheap laptop try to estimate if you could recover part of the cost in the future by selling it in the second hand market. 

Disclaimer: I’m not affiliated with apple in any way, and got no incentives to promote them.

You started working on your new startup?
You have a magical product/service in mind and you can’t afford burning a lot of cash?

Let’s say you’ve prepared a list of features that are “must have” and “nice to have”. Now you will probably start building as many features as possible before launching your first version. 

Let’s have a look into the most likely scenario.

1. You work really hard to complete as many features as possible.
2. You release your first version.
3. You hardly get any users, and the few users you get act completely different to what you expected.
4. You go back to the design board and rethink the product.
5. You work on a new version that will fix the problems of the previous version and maybe create a slightly different product.
6. Your new version still doesn’t work, and the few users who tried the product, don’t use it anymore.
7. And so on, and so on…

Only if you could do things differently…

Now, let’s see how everything could be different.

1. You choose only one feature, the core of your product.
2. You develop this feature only, as simple as possible.
3. You add tracking code all over this feature, to track exactly what the users do.
4. You release a private version of this feature with a minimal time to market.
5. You hardly get any users, and the users you do get act completely different to what you expected. (Same as in the first scenario)
6. You buy users by using pay per click (ppc) ads.
7. Measure, measure and measure the users’ behavior.
8. You go back to the design board and rethink the product. (Same as in the first scenario)
9. You work on a new version that will fix the problems of the previous version and maybe create a slightly different product. (Same as in the first scenario)
10. You iterate over the same steps until you are happy with the users’ behavior.

The product of the 2nd scenario will almost always be better than the product of the 1st scenario.
In addition to that, it saved you a lot of time and money, you know what your users want and now you can continue developing all the other features around it. 

I believe that focusing on one feature, will make all the difference.

Recently I heard some rants about startup accelerator programs.

As a big believer in the acceleration process, I had to explain why I recommend joining such a program.

First, the rant:

Here are some of the arguments against joining accelerators*:

1. In 3 months at an accelerator program, you will be able to achieve more work than you ever thought you can (around 3 times more than what you achieve regularly).
2. Accelerator is a due diligence for investors. Investors will more probably invest in your company and give higher valuation for accelerator graduates. After all, it’s harder to get into a top accelerator than into Harvard or Yale.
3. You have a brand behind your startup - it makes it easy to open doors in the future.
4. The heavy mentorship allow you to shape your product in the right way, instead of failing over and over again till you reach the right product or give up.
5. It’s not about the money, it’s about creating a better product and becoming a better entrepreneur.
6. The equity given is not an issue. The valuation is what really matters. So if for example the accelerator doubled the valuation of your company,  you can now give away half the equity for the same amount of capital.
7. Networking - you create a huge network of supporters and of connections that want you to succeed (mentors and other startups that participated). Your success is their success. So therefore they will work to make you successful.

My suggestion for 2012: Apply to one of the top accelerators, and give your startup a boost into space.

Nir

* Arguments against - based on Rayhan Omar

I saw a facebook post today, with an idea for a mobile app.

The first response to this post was - “I have a feeling that you are not the first one who thought about it”.

Comments like this, make me furious.

I deeply believe that it’s not about being first, it’s about being the best.

Startup is like running for a long distance. If you are better than all the other runners, and they get the opportunity to start running 3 minutes before you, you will eventually keep up with them and win.

There are so many examples of companies who succeeded big time, and they were not the first, like YouTube & 5min.com.

In fact, my co-founder at PlayerDuel, was doing wisetrainer.com 2 years before 5min.com. He even gave them all his videos when he closed the website and they just started. 5min.com became a huge success although it was not the first. They were later acquired by AOL for $65M.

So the next time you come up with an idea, and someone tells you: “You are not the first”, just tell them that you are going to be the FIRST - The FIRST to make this idea a great success !

Now I’m less furious, after writing this post :)

Nir

There is an old joke about how to do business:

Father: “I have a husband for your daughter.”
Bill Gates: “But my daughter is too young to marry!”
Father: “But this young man is a vice-president of the World Bank.”
Bill Gates: “Ah, in that case…ok”

Finally Father goes to see the president of the World Bank.

Father: “I have a young man to be recommended as a vice-president.”
President: “But I already have more vice- presidents than I need!”
Father: “But this young man is Bill Gates’s son-in-law.”
President: “Ah, in that case…ok”

Apparently, raising capital for your startup can be similar.Investors often want to invest in founders who have already secured part of the capital. 

So founders can find themselves outside of this circle. The question is how to approach the first chain in the circle.
I definitely don’t recommend to invent the first chain (like the father did), because lying won’t get you far in business.
Instead, you can offer the first chain to be a part of your team (advisor), or just offer the first chain something unique that you don’t offer all the other chains. Be creative.

And most importantly, don’t forget that there are many circles, and not just one.

Good luck,
Nir 

Well, we all had this problem when we created our twitter account.

Who should we follow ?

I suggest to tackle this problem in the following approach:

1. Follow your first circle of friends & colleagues first.
2. Then choose a few of them and check out who they are following. If you see interesting people there, follow them as well.
3. Now it’s time to go for the famous ones, the ones that have XXX,XXX followers and the ones that interest you.
4. Business Competitors - you want to follow them to keep updated of their moves. They say you should keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
5. Your competitors are following some people that you probably should follow as well. Go to check out for them.

This approach is relevant for old twitter users as well.

Happy following.

Steve Jobs