[perplexes]

I've noticed in a few of these stories that the path the entrepreneur took wasn't optimal by their own standards (e.g. charging early), yet there is still success.

If you want success, should you follow what they did rather than what their advice says you should do?

[nkabbara]

A very valid point and it has come up in my head many times, not just in regards to entrepreneurship, but other issues with a similar pattern.

Before giving out the advice, I had to ask myself whether things started getting better because of charging customers, or did charging customers coincide with an unknown event that caused some success?

Everything points to the former, in my case. But I do believe this particular advice applies to many other startups, not just mine.

Edit: I'd like to add, that after charging and studying usage more closely we removed some unused 'cool' feature that we thought were awesome. Charging customers also prunes your app. If you pay attention.