Loïc Le Meur’s 10 Rules for Business Success, from the great piece Chris Nutall wrote for the Financial Times. Some do sound counter-intuitive, that makes them even more interesting. So read, and THINK before you do them.
1- Do not wait for a revolutionary idea, the idea of your life will never happen, just focus on a simple exciting empty space you see and execute as fast as possible
2- Share your idea as much as possible, the more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
3- Build a community around you through blogging and social software
4- Listen to your community, answer questions and build your product with their feedback, involve bloggers as early as possible and get their feedback, if negative, adapt your product permanently
5- Gather a great team with a very different skill set than yours, look for people who are better than you without being afraid of it
6- Be the first to recognize a problem or a mistake you have made. Never hide it behind the carpet. Address the issue in public, learn and correct it.
7- Do not spend time on market research, but launch as early as possible in alpha or beta versions. Keep improving the product in the open.
8- Do not focus on a large spreadsheet business plan, you are so sure it is not going to happen anyway
9- Do not plan huge marketing, growing with your community loving the product is much more powerful
10- Do not focus on getting rich or selling your company, focus on your users, money is a consequence of success, can’t be a goal.
Remember though that military strategy, and business strategy recommends discretion. However once an idea is close to fruition, I do agree sharing, and using social media sounds like solid advice.
