[JMStewy]

I appreciate founders sharing their experiences like this, but I feel like most of this list suffers from premature generalization. Especially if these are lessons learned the hard way, I'd rather hear more of a "war story".

Some, like "They plan details about sh*t that never sees the light of day" are quite self-sufficient, but some of the others are pretty vague or even come across as contradictory. "They seek too much advice from too many sources with too many conflicting views" but also "They do mental incest by bouncing ideas off the same people every time"? I know that different founders make different mistakes, but I'm still in the dark on how to find the happy middle.

For ones like that, or "They have no clue about their market", I want to hear what happened! What's the story behind the advice?

I know that this is beyond the scope of a list like this, but maybe it could be fodder for some future blog posts.

[iusable]

I agree! Some of the things are even contradictory from what you hear in the Lean Startup echo chamber now. They would make a ton more sense if they carried examples or some sort of 'war story'.

I started a new thread just last night for this - http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3498421 - Bootstrapped Consumer Web Startup Stories? #Win and #Fail.

I am not sure how to get this conversation started, but I really would love to hear from the community on HN.

[amirmc]

Why would you expect them to not be contradictory? People will have made mistakes on both sides (and the author may have made them both within the same startup too).

I agree that it's difficult to generalise but the utility of a list this comes from the introspection it can provoke. "Am I talking to too many people?" "Am I following vanity metrics?" "Am I planning details that matter?"

[andreasklinger]

Hey!

Awesome. I am happy to share details on single warstories and how to avoid them. I just wanted to get this bulk of my chest first :)