startups
if you want to start a company in silicon valley you will need the following things: an idea, a plan, drive, labor, money. obviously, this is not an all encompassing list. you could have greatness in all of the areas, and still fail. that is far and away the most likely outcome. 90% fail. the companies that succeeded had good deals in all areas of the list. here's the typical life of a startup. start with a great idea: hands free input device that converts brain waves to blue tooth. the plan is really boring. build it. sell it. any mba can do it. got a great sales team on board. drive means someone to crack the whip and make sure everyone sticks to the plan. got a great management team lined up. got labor covered. nice mixture of hungry (cheap) young collidj grads and experienced old farts. all we need now is money. got a vc all sold on the vision. with us 100%. so everything's going along great. every demo is amazingly better than the last. we ship. things look great. ipo. stock goes up and up and up. then suddenly. things start to go wrong. stock price plummets. nobody will touch us with the proverbial pole. layoffs imminent. and boom. $25 million crater.