Comments on: 7 Things I Learned From My Startup Failing

By: Noel Chandler

Noel Chandler — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 23:37:24 +0000

Thanks so much for your candor and sharing this experience, Christian. You are a great guy and doing so much for Bay Area start up culture. Best of luck to you in your other ventures.

By: Mark Cramer

Mark Cramer — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 22:04:53 +0000

Christian – Excellent post and thanks for sharing! People need to read things like this. I’d like to make a small comment about #4 – Talk to people and listen to them closely.

While I agree entrepreneurs need to speak with, and more importantly, listen to as many people as possible, the naysayers are NOT always right. In fact, group think is often mistaken and I disagree that the world is always collectively smarter than the individual. It is often the individual who sees something that no one else does who’s then able to innovate.

The HUGE challenge for entrepreneurs is trying to figure out when it’s the world that’s right and when it’s them. Knowing when enthusiasm becomes delusion is extremely difficult, and is tightly related to your last point – Know when to let it go. All that being said, it’s even more difficult to make that judgment if you’re not speaking with as many people as you can.

By: Exare

Exare — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:05:11 +0000

Great advice. Helpful for an aspiring Entrepreneur.

By: Mikkel Garcia

Mikkel Garcia — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 21:45:03 +0000

Thank you for your writeup. I was involved with a failed startup before, and I agree – it’s about as fun as ‘getting hit with a sack of bricks’ .

Now I’m trying to create applications that I will use personally, so even if they fail – I can still use them. The first one is http://foreclosuremaps.org to help me buy a foreclosed property.

Good luck in your future products!

By: Yaron Samid

Yaron Samid — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 17:03:59 +0000

Excellent, important words of wisdom. Thank you for sharing and congrats on achieving such wonderul failure. I think you’ll reflect back on it as being far more valuable than a first-time success.

By: Daniel Burka

Daniel Burka — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 16:59:24 +0000

Really strong article Christian. The points about problem-solving, simplicity, and fewer cooks in the kitchen all ring true from my experience.

By: Sengine Smite

Sengine Smite — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 14:45:43 +0000

That was very informative and insightful. Thank you for sharing this and good luck in whatever you do!

By: Gus Murray

Gus Murray — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 13:29:32 +0000

Great post, really valid points, before joining my current employer I had a startup company that recently closed. There were two of us that founded the company and while I agree that too many cooks spoil the broth, I wouldn’t choose to do it on my own as the support, sparing and ability to share, good and bad, experiences was priceless, but I acknowledge it may not work for everyone.

By: drew

drew — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 08:13:47 +0000

Thanks for sharing your experience. Products that solve more abstract problems (or perhaps “no problem”) are definitely more difficult to evangelize.

Are you an avid iPhone gamer? If so, great idea for a new site and it should even be easy to monetize.

By: SD

SD — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 04:00:22 +0000

these lessons are surely bound to help many new and old starters..thanks for sharing….