1. All engineers:
This is a popular problem in Waterloo, the start-up scene where I originally came up in before moving to Toronto. At least half of the start-ups I worked around had founding teams that were exclusively engineers. That means no business, marketing, or sales. See number 4 on the list for more information on why this is a bad thing.
2. No engineers:
This is a Toronto problem. Founding teams with no technical skills that want to launch a highly technical product. Asking how they will build the product often gets laughed off and followed up with a lazy explanation on how to hire remote programmers from various websites. This almost always fails. If your entire product offering is built using software, you need someone on your team who knows how to design software. This sounds like a no-brainer, and maybe having a background in Computer Science makes me biased, but I cannot tell you how many times I have seen software start-ups fails because they have no CTO.
3. Users first, revenue later:
This is a mistake I have been most guilty of, just because it is so tempting and encouraged by many advisers you come across in the start-up space. But what about Facebook? Twitter? While it is possible to be successful using this model, I compare it with winning the lottery – especially if you are raising money in Canada where investors are exponentially more conservative compared with our friends on the flip side of the border. Sales can save your company, embrace it. When pitching investors, cash is king, and you get more excitement out of your potential investors when you show revenue (not just a hockey stick projection chart from your deck).
4. Building tech instead of product:
This is a continuation of point 1 (having a team of engineers). I have been guilty of this and I am sure so have most technical entrepreneurs. We like to build cool stuff, and whatever we build we are certain everyone will love. While other engineers may be impressed with your technical achievements on a product, it may not be a viable product. It is so important to have non-engineers on your founding team, people who know how to convert your cool tech into an actual product that you can sell…for money!
5. Release dates:
One mistake my first start-up made was staying in stealth mode until we had what we thought to be a perfect product. The main problem with this is that you are not getting any user feedback or market validation so lots of time gets wasted. I am not saying to release products early that don't work, but rather suggesting that you release it in stages and try to capture as must user feedback you possibly can.
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