Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup

Part 4. PRODUCT

From an outsider's perspective, startups are often synonymous with their products. After all, that's the only connection most people will ever have to your company. It therefore follows that if your product sucks, your company sucks. And I'm sure you'll agree that the majority of products, at least on the Internet, suck. You do the math.

We often talk about the Number One startup killer at TechStars—making a product for which there is no interesting market. TechStars accepts just 10 of more than 600 startups that apply and presumably they are among the best. But still, we find that at least one-third of those startups are attempting to build a product that they want, or that no one wants, instead of what the market wants. Every year, this is one of the key things that happens at TechStars—products get dropped, and new ones are born. You can't hide from a lack of market at TechStars. It stalks you and threatens to kill you.

The best entrepreneurs we know are obsessed with their products. Dick Costolo, currently the COO of Twitter and previously the CEO of FeedBurner, wakes up each morning with his product on his mind. Rob Hayes of First Round Capital talks about how to pivot when your product isn't working. And Eric Marcoullier, the founder of MyBlogLog, Gnip, and OneTrueFan reminds us to regularly throw things away.

You'll find that much of this section is about how to get to the right product, not about the tactics of building what you imagine the right product to ...