Jessica Livingston in "Founders at Work Stories of Startups' early days" ha intervistato 32 startuppers di successo: Max Levchin fondatore di Paypal, Sabeer Bhatia fondatore di Hotmail, Steve Wozniak Apple, Joe Kraus Excite, Dan Bricklin Software Arts, Mitchell Kapor Lotus Notes, Ray Ozzie Groove Networks, Evan Williams Blogger, Tim Brady Yahoo,

Rim, Paul Buchheit Gmail, Steve Perlman Web TV, Mike Ramsey Tivo, Paul Graham Viaweb, Joshiua Schacter delicio.us, Mark Fletcher Bloglines,
Craig Newmark craiglist, Caterina Fake Flickr, Brewster Kahle Alexa, Charles Geshke Adobe Systems, Ann Winblad Open System, David H. Hanson
37 signals, Philip Greenspun ArsDigita, Joel Spolski Fog Creek Sofware, Stephen Kaufer TripAdvisor, James Hohong Hot or Not, James Currier Tickle,
Blake Ross Firefox, Mena Trott Six Apart , Bob Davis Lycos ,Ron Gruner Shareholder.com.

Dalle 37 interviste emergono alcuni temi ricorrenti riguardo alle difficolta'che ogni stratup si trova ad affrontare ed anche le caratteristiche personali che accumunano tutti quelli che decidono di lanciare una iniziativa imprenditoriale da zero.

Un tratto che accomuna quasi tutti gli intervistati e' lo scarso valore attribuito all' attivita' di business planning,indispensabile per il fund raising ma che poco valore sostanziale aggiunge nel momento in cui l'attivita' imprenditoriale si confronta con la realta'.

" The biggest entrepreneurial lesson I've learned has been that you really do need to follow your isntincts"

"Throw out your business plan.Your Customers or potential customers are telling you what your business should be.The businness plan was just used to get the money"

Altro aspetto ricorrente e' quello relativo al cercare di non raccogliere "VC funding" troppo presto in quanto molte delle innnovazioni sia di prodotto che di organizzazione derivano dal dover fare cose con una quantita' limitata di risorse.

"Constraints inspire creativity. The less money you have, the fewer people and resources you have, the more creative you have to become"

L'importanza di guardare avanti e la necessita' di una costante attivita' di innovazione

"Part of good management and part of the attitude of a startup, is to recognize that, while some business are incredibly successful today and you hope they will be
successfull for a long time, the law of averages and experience tells you that at some point they will peak and they will probably begin to decay. So you have got to
be investing today in what your futeure is going to be 5 or 10 years out"

Un tratto fondamentale e comune a tutti gli startuppers e la passione come forza decisiva che spinge a cominciare un' attivita' imprenditoriale e la capacita' di vedere
il rischio come opportunita'

"I'm going to forgo the normal,safe route,where there's a clear path.I'm going to take a higher risk and go for a higher reward"
"They decided that they were going to be entrepreneurs before they knew exactly what they were going to do"

La capacita' di risolvere i problemi e di non arrendersi alle difficolta'.

"I think the life of an entrepreneur is a life of setbacks, challanges, disappointments and failures. Its not how you celebrate success,its how you overcome adversity and the hardship that determines how he business succceds"

Le persone piu' che le idee sono cio' che alla fine fa la differenza.

Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days

16 marzo 2010

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