| Seth - Thanks for sharing your perspective - its extremely courageous to talk about these things in the open. I am a startup founder and have been there done that - allow me to seed you with a radically different perspective. You made NO mistakes. None. Every lesson that you learned - you will unlearn it in the next year or so. There are lessons to learn over here, but not the ones you mentioned - they will come - just wait for it. Everyone pointing out in this thread about your mistakes is dead wrong. They don't know what it takes - most have never been close to what you are doing - they just don't know. This is also one of the reasons it might NOT help to talk about these things in public - though I am not saying that you shouldn't. Most successful founders make most of these mistakes - and then some. The only mistake that you really made is to not figure out the business - everything else is not important. Sales fixes everything - and it would have fixed all these mistakes. Specifically: 1. Skipping on taxes till its too late - this is a trait of a successful founder. It means you are focussed on the business too much to bother about paying taxes. 2. Poorly defined co founder relationships - the story about 'every' startup. Let me tell you the secret about founder relationships - ignore them. Figure out the 'business' - founder relationships will figure themselves out. 3. Hacks - This world is unfortunately run by people who don't see things like we do. To hack is to have tread that middle ground which keeps the peace and also lets us run things they way they should. 4. Going it alone - There is no other way. At the centre of the biggest changes the world has ever seen, there is a lonely founder. You have to do it alone - dont seek to change it - just understand it. 5. Investor relations - Investors like a good business more than you and me - you fix the business and let the investor will fix the relations. |