If you gonna set up a web startup ...

Wanna be the next Google? Do I hear a "Yes" elsewhere ? I have loads of thoughts on this since I love doing web startup. So let's do this checklist to realize...

1. Do you know absolutely everything about your business? Do you eat your own dog food? Those "Well, I will use my product later when it is fully developed/established" or "Ehr, I will use my service later, got things to do now..." will definitely fail, more here

2. Are you ambitious/motivated enough? Doing startup is not doing your everday work, if you work only 8 hours a day and spend the rest of the day relaxing then you better quit it. Most IT staff work 8 hours per day under excellent management and what will make your company the next Google since there is no difference between you and other normal IT staff.

3. Do you have a successful team? From Taneli

Startup teams should be about things like attitude, values, goals, objectives, motivation, trust, learning, courage, energy, intensity, competence, superior judgement and good communication (emphasis on feedback).

They should not be about: micro-management, processes, business plans, formal matters, profit and loss statements, reports, politics, non-action, vague visions and missions, long hours and exhausted managers, strict roles and responsibilities.

Success Teams are often full of leaders. There isn't just one central person responsible of leadership: everybody leads, and they lead to every possible direction: their own teams, colleagues, their bosses, partners etc.

And in the end, let's discuss a quote from Kristoffer Lawson:

New startups are fantastic because they still think it's easy so they'll go for it and only later realise the deep hole they got themselves into :-)

Now you decide: do you give up or go forwards with the lessons learnt. If you decide to continue, chances are you'll have now learnt stuff the hard way and will be much better tomorrow. You need to be hammered to eventually become world-beaters!