So, I read this article http://www.paulgraham.com/startupmistakes.html and have learned that the startup I am working on is going to fail. As I go through the article I find I actually have made several of those mistakes.

1) I am a single founder. In fact, no one is helping me. I’ve gotten some very good advice, which was build the product and worry about the business later. So instead of spending time looking for a cofounder, I’ve been building my product.

2) It appears I’m in a bad location. But, I need to stay in the DC area because that’s where the job that pays the bills is. Not to mention I’m upside down in my townhouse and just don’t believe in walking away from a mortgage. Not a debate I’m interested in getting into with anyone either, it’s a moral values thing.

4) Maybe my idea is a derivative idea. I mean, there are already search engines, and there are already search hosted search solutions. I guess it makes sense at this point to link to my unfinished project. It’s http://www.unscatter.com which provides an internet search engine, and I’m in the process of building a hosted search option as well. Mind you, I’m building on existing API’s such as Bing, Twitter, Youtube, and Facebook to start. I guess you don’t get more derivative than that.

5) Obstinacy. Ask my wife about that word and how it pertains to me. I guess I’ll find out how it applies to me in the future as an entrepreneur. However, I do believe that I have a specific vision for my product, and a plan that really stretches years down the road for what I want to accomplish and which markets I want to compete in.

6) Hiring bad programmers. Well, I haven’t hired anyone yet. But, I’m not the greatest programmer either. In fact, it’s not my day job. I’m actually a systems administrator, and I’ve already identified that at some point I’m going to have to get programmers better than myself to take my product as far as I want to go. I’m sure once I get better programmers they’re going to look at what I’ve written and ask “what was he thinking?”.

8) Slowness in launching. I’ve been working on this for over a year. I’ve redone infrastructure and design multiple times before getting a solid base put together. I’m also not going out after VC, which will really slow my launch. Then again, since I’m doing it all on my own I’m hoping for a slow enough launch that I can handle making changes based on early user feedback.

11) Raising too little money. I’m not raising any. Turns out right now I can support 25 hits a second for $10 a month, and when I’m really ready to turn on charging people I’m looking at about $100 a month to support operations. Why would I raise money?

So, that’s the reasons that I will fail. Honestly, I’m not going to make any changes based on reading this article, and I’m certainly not going to quit. I’ve read some other reasons I’ll likely fail too. Such as I’m in my 30’s, never done a startup, and have a family. I guess I may have already passed the point in my life where I can do a startup.

But, I have flaw #5, obstinacy. I think it’s actually a good thing. I imagine a lot of people that founded this country and that have kept it going have been told they couldn’t reach their goals either, and they did. In the end, if you have a good product and believe in it, which I do, then you should be able to succeed. It’s as simple as that. So, nice article, but please if you’re trying to do your own startup, don’t take it as the gospel.

edit: Right after posting this I got an email stating my blog turned 1 today. Judging by the amount of posts I’ve made over the past year, I guess I generally don’t have a lot to say.