Paul Graham Explains How to Start a Startup

woginuk writes "Paul Graham has posted a new essay on his website on how to start a startup. According to him 'You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.' How difficult can that be? So go start them startups."

Missing something

[justforaday]

Ummm, shouldn't there be a good idea somewhere in there too?

Where are my Millions?

[Anonymous Coward]

First, I have excellent fucking people skills, I understand that people just want to be left alone and I didn't spend ANY money on that! Where is my friggin' BMW at?

Three Steps to internet success

[Tablespork]

I thought it went something like this:

1. Give something valuable away for free.
2. ???
3. Profit!

Re:I'd rather hear the same

[Anonymous Coward]

I didn't RTFA.

Was Step Two "????" by any chance?

Inspiring Article!

[Anonymous Coward]

I am going to resurrect Gopherspace and sell it as the internet 2.

the secret

[justforaday]

to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible

Ahhh, so that was the secret to Microsoft's success...

There is only one thing they need...

[gosand]

There is one and only one thing that a startup needs. And that is the infamous: "???"

Re:Smart people ...

[taustin]

When someone makes a point of telling me how honest he is, I make sure to count my fingers after we shake hands. My reaction to people who tell me how smart they are is similar.



Yeah, when someone tells me how smart they are, I count my fingers afterwords, too, out of fear their stupidity might be contageous.

Re:Man last time I read something this positive

[Gannoc]

For example, I would be reluctant to start a startup with a woman who had small children, or was likely to have them soon. when you're starting a company, you can discriminate on any basis you want about who you start it with.

"Hello, i'm Susan Johnson."
"I'm going to call you Suzy."
"Ummm, OK."
"Actually, lets call you Suzy McTitsfull."
"What??"
"Are you a breeder McTitsfull? Because we're trying to start a business and we can't have your water breaking all over our nice Aerons."
"That is none of your goddamn business."
"Well, then we have something in common, because THIS isn't YOUR business, McTitsfull. I knew I shouldn't have interviewed some random gash. GOOD-BYE."

Re:Where are my Millions?

[taustin]

First, I have excellent fucking people skills

There's your problem. If you want to succeed in business, and make your millions, you need excellent people fucking skills, not fucking people skills.

I hear Bill Gates gives classes. Pants not required. Or allowed.

Re:Also requisite...

[TheGavster]

Which brings us to the alternate requirements:

-A patent
-A lawyer
-Xerox paper and envelopes

Don't bother...

[Overzeetop]

If you can pull that one off, you may as well just play the stock market. One rule: buy low, sell high. How can you lose?

Re:Missing item

[Ohreally_factor]

Garage.

Coming soon!

[Black Parrot]

In future episodes we will teach you how to pick a pickup, fix a fixup, hang a hangup, and screw a screwup.

stupid formatting

[sootman]

Dear Paul,

If you don't
mind, I would
like to have
control over
how wide a
column of
text appears
in my web
browser
window.

Thanks,
Teh Intarweb

Re:further reading

[Anonymous Coward]

I highly recommend the book The Art of the Start by Guy Kawasaki

That's an awesome name. It's up there with Wolf Blitzer. I wish I had a name like that.

Re:Where are my Millions?

[taustin]

Could someone more familiar with Slashdot moderation please enlighten me as to how this is possible?

No. No one can. If you can't figure it out on your own, it's too complicated for you.

Trust me on this. I'm much smarter than you. After all, I got modded up to 5. And you didn't. Neener, neener, neneer.

Re:Make sure you live frugally!

[bleckywelcky]

In th end, they chose to make a movie about it all and rake in a few thousand dollars to cover some of their losses ... the first good business decision they made :)

Feinman integration method

[Anonymous Coward]

1) look at the integral

2) scratch head (or balls)

3) write down the symbols that, when you take the derivative, give the integral

Compare also to Joel of Fogbrain Software, and his guides on how to clean up old code, for example -- it consists of 1) have a lot of time, weeks and weeks, in which you have to do nothing and 2) write code that does the exact same thing but is better organized.