The Value of Design to Startups

Original version here:

http://www.500hats.typepad.com/500blogs/2010/01/startups-vcs...

The editing process apparently stripped it of some of damn-wretched bloodletting tricolored shamen-with-ransom-notes charm. (That might sound snarky but I actually kind of like the metaphor. The refusal to use rudimentary measures like e.g. A/B testing because "it is hard and anyway I know what I'm doing" makes us look less like doctors and more like physicians leeching patients because, hey, leeches were good enough for Dad. Or, to use a modern analogy, we look like doctors who will not use checklists because they're too smart to ever kill anyone because they didn't follow a checklist.)

"This is an edited version of an article that previously ran on DaveMcClure.com."

I'm guessing that "pruned" is a more accurate description than "edited."

Great article, though.

It follows nicely on that posterous v tumblr post a couple weeks ago. Design matters. I guess the question becomes how much? And that probably varies based on industry and who you are competing against. Do you have to be amazing or better than everyone else?

So... he's basically saying that a great user experience, as well as good marketing, is the barrier to entry, rather than great engineering?

Unsurprising that this article earned four (now five) comments from HN readers, whereas "lisp vs. language x" articles merit dozens.

People think you need your right leg to walk but it's the left leg that's really important.