I found this article yesterday and posted it to twitter — I thought it was so spot on that I wanted to add it here as well:
What Startups Are Really Like by Paul Graham
Some of my favorite quotes from (because I’ve seen these things in the startups I’ve been a part of) this were:
On Use of Time:
“Most hacker-founders would like to spend all their time programming. You won’t get to, unless you fail. Which can be transformed into: If you spend all your time programming, you will fail.” — DOH!
On Product Development:
“Now, when coding, I try to think ‘How can I write this such that if people saw my code, they’d be amazed at how little there is and how little it does?’”
On Product Development Strategy:
“It’s so important to launch fast that it may be better to think of your initial version not as a product, but as a trick for getting users to start talking to you.”
The more I work on my own products and the more I consult with businesses, the more I can see how true the open source mantra of “Release Quickly, Release Often” is in all areas of business as well.
Blair Williams has been working as a Software Engineer and Internet Marketer for over a decade. He specializes in writing and leveraging Software drive explosive growth in Businesses of all sizes. He's an expert in WordPress, Ruby on Rails, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Pay Per Click (PPC) Marketing, Website Strategy and New Media.
Blair is the author of the Pretty Link, Mingle & several other plugins for WordPress. Between them, Blair's plugins have been downloaded almost 200,000 times and are some of the most popular plugins for WordPress. In addition to these plugins, Blair has created Pretty Link Pro which is a premium upgrade to Pretty Link and provides a ton of useful features and premium support.
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This was an excellent article. I recommend anybody serious about doing “great” things read this and commit it to memory!