Why do people latch onto the superficial aspects of other startups?

1. Startup names are becoming annoyingly standardized. You basically take a word that relates to your industry then ad –ly or instead turn it into a verb by adding –ify at the end. Yet these aspects are completely independent of the startup’s success. Instead why don’t people try and come up with a name that is short, easy to remember, intuitive to spell, and descriptive of what the company is about. That might actually affect your success as a startup.

2. FORGET VIRALITY! When I was a freshman in college I uploaded a video to youtube that received 20k views in a week and millions by the months end. I got calls from all the major “funny video” websites and ended up selling to collegehumor.com (~$400), which was a mistake since a week later I got a call from ABC who was interested and offered 3k. The point is the more viral you are the more prone you are to fizzle out faster. The whole ordeal lasted less than a few months. IMO “Virality” and virality coefficients are a waste of time if you want to actually build a business. Spend the time you would improving your viral score and build a better/more useful product.

3. Do you really need a mobile app? There are plenty of industries in which a mobile app would serve no purpose except wasting the time and resources of the developers.

4. A/B testing is a waste of time. Instead use that time building a better product! Craigslist/Google, for instance, has barely changed any of their layout/design. Good developers spend time improving their core product and doing things that are important/matter, not testing the effectiveness of different font colors.

a. Does design/brand image (logo) even have any effect on success?

Cliffs: If you are going to copy another company at least copy the parts that attributed to their success. //rant