Paul Graham: The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups

Paul Graham has posted an essay on The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups. Graham hits a bullseye when he claims that a big mistake that startups make is that they don’t make something that users want (After all of my usability posts this week, I feel like I want to leap into a Steve Ballmer chant: “Users! Users! Users!”).

If you are creating something that users want, then the 18 mistakes are mostly business-oriented shortcomings: too little funding, too much funding, launching too early, launching too late, spending too much, and so on. (Interestingly, one mistake, “Single Founder”, is not possible in Massachusetts, where a company or LLC needs at least two founders)

As always, I find Graham’s essays to be a worthwhile and informative read. Here’s the index of his essays for your viewing pleasure.

Usability strikes twice in one day

In today’s episode of On Point on WBUR, “Simplicity in Technology“, host Tom Ashbrook interviews John Maeda, whose latest book, “The Laws of Simplicity“, deals with creating simpler products and electronic gadgetry. (I’ll post more about this once I listen to the episode!)

To my surprise, I see that WordPress thinks I wrote this entry tomorrow! Ah, there’s an Option to change the time zone. And I can’t wait until I get more readers – according to the Statistics offered by WordPress, I’ve had NaN visitors so far. I’m not complaining about my blogging tool; I’m just amused by some of its idiosyncracies.

Today is World Usability Day

Today is World Usability Day, as declared by the Usability Professionals’ Association. Various events are planned all around the world in an effort to raise awareness about usability – and there are YouTube casts (many from the Boston Museum of Science) and webcasts in case you missed any of the events. Maybe you’ll even get a chance to see our superhero, Usability Man!

Java released to Open Source community

Sun will be releasing Java under the GPL Open Source license.

While we’ve always been able to download the source code to see what goes on behind-the-scenes in Java’s classes, this is the first time that the javac compiler and JVM code will be revealed. Sun should finish releasing the source code to its implementation of the Java specification by the first half of 2007 (ref).

What they won’t be releasing is the programming language or specification itself; this is goverened by the Java Community Process (ref). And, the license under which this is being released is the “GPL with Classpath Exception”, which means that your product doesn’t have to fall under the GPL just because it includes Java (ref – and with the obvious caveat that I am not a lawyer. FYI: Common misconceptions about the GLP license).

Welcome!

Welcome to From Idea to Product!  I intend to use this blog to spread the joy of transforming fascinating ideas into outstanding software products.  I will cover best practices and new innovations in the software lifecycle, the ups and downs of business and marketing, and most importantly of all, the travails and the glee of the end-user.

This ought to be a fun and informative ride!