How to startup and how to market it when you do

Sorry, no analysis here; I’m bookmarking this stuff for later reference.

• Fred Wilson’s Harvard MBA class discussion of startup success.
  • Jeffrey Bussgang’s writeup of the event.
• Fred Wilson’s instantly-famous diss on marketing and suggestions re alternative tactics.
  • Fred’s follow up post.
  • Counterpoint from SEOMoz.
• David Karp talks about creating Tumblr. (My whole post is a strong argument for Tumblr.)
• Jeff Bussgang’s “should I become an entrepreneur” post.

how to succeed with an early-stage startup

Takeaways from the articles above:

1. Lean startup FTW (caveat: garbage in, garbage out).
2. Founder passion (founder domain knowledge allows you to bypass customer discovery).
3. No marketing. Products should be natively social. Games are social, as is expression.
4. Native monetization.

Fun quotes from Fred Wilson

…and others, culled from the articles above:

The 2-step super distribution model: Get the power users to adopt something and then the people who follow the power users will adopt it too

Early in a startup, product decisions should be hunch driven. Later on, product decisions should be data driven.

Early in a startup you need to acquire your customers for free. Later on, you can spend on customer acquisition.

If you have an idea that you can’t get out of your head, do a startup. Otherwise join a startup.

Don’t worry about whether you are building a feature, a product or a company. Build something great, have huge passion for it, engender affection with a large customer base, and let the rest follow.

There are three addictions in life: calories, heroine, and a paycheck.