Frugality tenets for Startups

Jason Calacanis started a great debate over the weekend by offering 17 free tips to startups.

The gist of the 17 tips can be summarized in two words – “Be Frugal“.

Some quotes and posts that I liked from other blogs:

From Mark Cuban’s blog:

• Don’t start a company unless its an obsession and something you love. (my $0.02 – even if you are passionate about your idea – startup, if there isnt a market need for it, chances are you might fail)

• If you have an exit strategy, its not an obsession.

• Know your core competencies and focus on being great at them. Pay up for people in your core competencies. Get the best. Outside the core competencies, hire people that fit your culture but are cheap

From Fred Wilson’s blog:

• I encourage our portfolio companies to hire a person inside the company to be an “evangelist”. That job includes blogging actively, reading and commenting and linking to other blogs, reaching out to the media and industry analysts and gurus, going to conferences and events, and generally getting the word out. (Google communicates primarily and frequently via blogs. Scoble did some great evangelism at M’soft)
  

Finally, I loved this from Tony Wright’s blog:

Human beings love formulas. Human beings who succeed naturally think that they’ve stumbled onto a magical step-by-step guide on how other people can succeed, too. They blog about it, speak about it, and generally spread their wisdom far and wide.

The funny thing is that when you read/hear enough of this stuff, you start hearing brilliant and successful people presenting advice that directly conflicts with the advice from other brilliant and successful people.

All of the advice that you read and hear is incredibly valuable– but it’s very situational. Add it to your “startup utility belt” and whip it out when you hit a bump in the road that looks familiar.

As an aside, I’m in serious awe of Jason’s marketing savvy and his ability to generate these blogosphere firestorms.

Similar Posts

• What would be your single biggest advice to fresh college graduates in India ?
• Downside of being an entrepreneur
• What Indian city is best conducive to entrepreneurship ?

Comments

4 Responses to “Frugality tenets for Startups”

1. Jai says:

   March 11, 2008 at 11:22 am

   Have you heard about an interesting new place online?
   KyaYaar is the new, fun way to share reviews and opinions about everything.

   Write a Review about your Fav place…
   Discuss about anything and everything with your friends,
   share your opinions and find what friends think about it…

   A Place for your social gathering…
   A Place for you to manage your friends and recommendation your friends have about places and products
   OR
   Express your creativity through poetry or short stories!

   Check it out…

   http://kyayaar.com/member/signup.html
2. Nishi Viswanathan says:

   March 11, 2008 at 1:16 pm

   Why do people keep posting irrelevant comments on this blog? Readers, do you such comments more on Indian blogs? Everyone wants to promote their startup, but there are so many more subtle ways to do that.
3. Nishi Viswanathan says:

   March 11, 2008 at 1:17 pm

   Oops, missed the word “see” in my previous post.
4. pranav says:

   March 11, 2008 at 11:04 pm

   @nishi,

   I’ve given up on such cases of blog whoring. If some one is overdoing it, i simply mark their comments as spam.