How a startup is guaranteed to fail?

This rather sarcastic advice on how to make sure your startup fails comes from Igor Shoifot, a venture capitalist from TMT Investments. While humorous, he also raises some important points to consider:

1. Be an inadequate person. Overwork yourself, abuse others, be rude, do not write to people after conversations, do not follow things up and break promises.

2. Focus only on the product and do not pay much attention to building the business itself.

3. Always bet on only 1, 2 or 3 sales channels.

4. Do not pay attention to competitors who also build the same product or an even better one.

5. Do not pay attention to corporate giants who do the same thing, for free or not, but with a significant advantage in the sales channels.

6. Do not busy yourself with pitch-decks (presentations), and don’t necessarily make them understandable.

7. Don't answer questions clearly.

8. Only worry about sales some of the time.

9. Don't be flexible, listen to trends in the market or change the product to meet these changes.

10. Don't focus only on your business. Always try to do different things; speak, blog, teach others and take up other hobbies.

11. Don't build any relationships with your team, partners and clients.

12. Look closely at what people say and write about you, and react!.

13. Always think that you are the smartest and most unique, and that all investors and employees should want to work with you.

14. Most importantly, always consider your competitors idiots and fools, and yourself a genius =).

While it may seem silly, in building a company people indeed do these things. Read these sarcastic tips with caution and you’ll have a much better chance of building a successful company.

P.S. To increase your chances to achieve success get our specific proposition for your startup here.

Author - Alexey Shashkov