| I have to disagree with the premise of the article. I've built a 'bleeding-edge' product for a very traditional market (public affairs) and succeeded. It's not because of the tech that a startup fails (unless the tech just doesn't work). Yes, it's hard to sell something people don't understand, but that's marketing. So you figure out their needs and the needs that your product fills and you focus on that. Pricing? You look at the cost of not using your product and go from there. Are you automating a human task that a single person does an hour a day? Start with that. Is your product reducing failures? Find out what those failures are costing. Start with that. Are you competing with a different product? Undercut or make sure your product adds more value. Product? Get a couple of 'beta testers' and interact with them, often. Find out what they want for them to buy the product and focus on stuff you and other beta testers agree with. Mental? Yeah, it is. running a startup isn't easy and nobody said it was. It took us over a year to proof that we could to what we wanted and nearly another to get to something we could sell. I got burnt out and ended up leaving. Now, though, they started hiring and are getting more well-known in the PA community. Even PA firms are starting to lose customers to the tech I designed and built. It was never easy, it was very hard, but it wasn't because of the tech, it was because starting a business is bloody hard. |