Ten Rules for Web Startups (2005)

Interesting that this was written while he was deep in Odeo but probably just before he realized it was untenable, and started doing the side project sprints that led to Twitter.

Odeo broke most of these rules, and Twitter followed almost all of them — save for the biggie #7. They followed #8 for way too long given that they never took the acquisition exit, to their detriment — at some point a lot earlier they should have either gotten acquired or stopped acting like that was their only exit.

Thank God for rule #11, otherwise rule #7 would look laughable in retrospect.

"give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy stamps an expiration date on your company's ass. In other words, design something to charge for into your product and start taking money within 6 months"

Advice I hear echoed all the time, yet all the big "holy shit, what a huge valuation" consumer internet startups with experienced entrepreneurs at the helm seem to ignore it. Just a thought.