How not to Fuck Up the First Time Like I Did

Mark Suster

NextGen Conference, January 2011

@msuster

Lessons from Both Sides of the Table

Me

Software development at Andersen Consulting

BuildOnline, CEO in London at 31(sold to public company)

Koral, CEO in Palo Alto(sold to Salesforce.com)

VC in Los Angeles

The Stupid Mistakes I Made the First Time

(but not the second time!)

** there were no blogs, no instruction manuals ;-)

I Didn’t Start Young Enough

JFDI

I Wasn’t Passionate About My Idea

I Raised Too Much Money

I Had Too Many Cofounders

I Pushed PR Before Our Product Was Ready

I Launched Too Many Products & Overspec’d

I Internationalized Too Early

My Team Was Too Much Like Me

I Hired Too Senior of a Team

I Attended Too Many Conferences

I Didn’t Flip Burgers

I Charged Too Much

I Became a Prostitute for Revenue

I Never Thought About Selling the Company

I Stayed Too Long

Take Aways

1. Don’t be afraid to try when you’re young & unencumbered

2. Find a topic you’re passionate about

3. Start lean

Take Aways (cont.)

1. Flip burgers

2. Don’t be a ho

3. Focus on your customers – nothing else matters

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Mark Suster

NextGen Conference, January 2011

@msuster ; BothSidesoftheTable.com