5 Rules for Online Businesses – Kieran O’Neil

ADVICE = Limited Life Experiences + Over Generalisation

So don't worry too much about it. Learn by doing.

1. Choice of Co-Founders

• The most important decision you will ever make.
• It's not necessarily the person you had the brilliant idea with who would be the best business partner.
• Choose people with energy and drive.

1. Raising capital from giving away equity is the most expensive source of funding!

Check out venturehacks.com

1. Cashflow ≠ Sales

You can scale up faster than you can get access to today's earnings. I.e. If you are relying on ad revenue, income will lag your outgoings by at least a month!

1. Figure out your key business metrics

• Then measure them OBSESSIVELY!
• FOCUS!

1. Get onto the feedback loop as soon as possible

• Constantly improve your website's service
• Get a beta or alpha version out really early and ask for peoples opinions. It saves you developing a product people don't want.

What's Hot:

Freemium

What's Not:

Ad supported businesses.

Developers and Development agencies:

'Very good' developers can do things 10 times better than 'good' developers.

Development Agencies are great but you should always get some recommendations from friends.

Finally:

Read "Smart gets things done." By Joel Spolsky – The Concise Guide to Finding the Best Technical Talent