slakinduff

If that's your goal, it's worthy, and you're doing a good job. Many of those young, aspiring entrepreneurs you're trying to reach are in discouraging personal situations. Well-meaning family and friends will discourage them, even ridicule them for undertaking a project. They'll be told they are too young. Actually, they'll discover as they get older that there is no RIGHT age with skeptics - you're always either too young or too old. "If that's such a good idea, why didn't someone else think of it before? Do you really think YOU are better than everyone else? Why don't you grow up and just get a regular job? You'll never get into college if you keep playing with all those electronic things, now do your homework and go to bed!" These are just examples of the discouraging voices young and aspiring entrepreneurs hear out there everyday. I could write an encyclopedia about it. We read so much about the Valley, and the environment there really is conducive to entrepreneural activity, but many young and aspiring entrepreneurs you may reach, are instead stuck in ugly, discouraging situations. Thanks, and Good Luck!

billbaloglu

Thanks for your comments. You raise very valid points. I totally agree! Avoiding all these pitfalls alone will not guarantee success for sure. However, falling into some of these traps will drastically increase the odds of failure. I have seen it so many times. You wouldn't believe how may young, aspiring entrepreneurs commit these sins. My goal here is to reach out globally to young, aspiring or first-time entrepreneurs, particularly those who don't have easy access to epicenters of high-tech entrepreneurship, such as Silicon Valley etc. If I can help even a small number navigate around and avoid these deadly sins, it is a small step for me, but a giant one for high-tech entrepreneurship.

slakinduff

Much of this insight has been presented by others, such as Paul Graham, too. The blatant errors seem easier to avoid because they're based on some well-known examples. However, some are not particularly easy to avoid because you can't always tell you're doing them. More than that, many startups that did ultimately become successful could have been charged with wrongdoing at the time. The point is, lists like this lead one to think that they are guaranteed to be successful if only they don't commit THESE sins. Aren't there an infinite number of things that can go wrong? And don't overlook the huge fact that the ultimate success of an entrepreneur, today, is largely based on THEIR past failures, failures not just in execution, but in not knowing themselves. I would like to think I could learn from others' mistakes, and I read a tremendous number of books and magazines to help me do that. But it only goes so far, because what I am doing is unique. Oh, it's not new in some broad sense, but this startup and my efforts, today, and what I am causing to happen now, is unlike anything else. I would prefer to read anything possible, about how it is that no one, even people who are paid to look for the next thing, will not listen or read anything from an entrepreneur. You know as well as I do, plans submitted electronically to VCs have no chance of ever being considered - NO MATTER WHAT THE IDEA. Why keep secrets? No one could care less what you're doing, even in the Valley. Everyone is already talking about THEIR thing. So, the plain truth is, you have to make it happen. And lists like this are a little like trying to drive from one coast to the other with nothing but a list of places NOT to go. Even if you don't turn here or there, it doesn't actually help.