Bad Advice From Henry Ford

Practical Tips for Startups: Listen to customers, stay rational. [Final Part 10]

For the months that I’ve been writing these stories about entrepreneurship I have been advising new entrepreneurs and their startups. But for the first time in nearly 30 years, I am not in their shoes in a fast growth tech company myself.

The perspective has been eye opening.

Watching and listening to new startups I often see and hear the same kinds of mistakes taking shape that were warned of in parts 1–9 of this series. I marvel, sometimes in dismay, at how perfectly rational and intelligent people check their reason at the door when they start a business.

You would never dream of attempting a complex construction project (at least I hope you wouldn’t) without proper training and expert guidance. You would be sure to learn from the lessons of others so as not to repeat their mistakes and have your house fall down.

Yet every day, it seems, scores of people start companies — and continue to run them for months and years — based on emotional assumptions. And they continue to do it — until they run out of money. Sometimes they raise more money. Then they run out of that money too.