-- "Steve Jobs isn’t doing anything radically different than other entrepreneurs. He just knows the rules of the game and plays it extremely well." I think that's nice in theory and may make folks feel good especially as its impossible to prove/disprove but arguing his success is the result of playing a game better seems wrong.
-- There isn't any factor which suggests the importance of the market the startup is going after. While management and momentum are alluded to in the 14 factors, market seems to be missing, no? And this seems to be a major gap.
-- It's not clear how success is measured which would be critical to dissecting patterns of success? It seems its measured in part by funding received. But given an overwhelming majority of funded startups don't succeed, not sure funding is an appropriate proxy for success. It may be necessary but is certainly not sufficient to guarantee success.
-- While large companies can use data to achieve better results, that's driven by the fact that they are generally more in the "exploit" portion of their maturity curve, i.e. eeking out another percent or two of market share, margin, revenue growth, etc. Startups on the other hand are about "exploration" (vs the exploit of the big cos) and while the practices of Ries/Blank make that exploration more rational, well-conceived, it remains an inherently uncertain thing.