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Make More Mistakes
prostoalex writes "Eric Sink from SourceGear, well-known in the open-source world for AbiWord Suite, shares his thoughts on starting and running a software business. One of the keys to a successful business, as Thomas J. Watson once said, was to double the rate of failures. Eric Sink tells the story of what mistakes he personally made, what could be avoided, and what's important for geeks to know when starting a software company."
So, Microsoft hosts a story that encourages other companies to try and fail more often, suggesting it might be good for them... great idea!
Ryan Fenton
Eric Sink
Software Craftsman, SourceGear
December 19, 2003
Summary: In an effort to encourage new entrepreneurs, Eric spills his guts about the mistakes he has made and the lessons he learned. (7 printed pages)
Robert Scoble, weblogger extraordinaire, recently said, "I want to see more software companies, not fewer." I heartily agree.
At the risk of being too obvious, let us observe that every ISV is started by an entrepreneur who somehow overcomes fear of failure. The genesis of a new company usually involves hundreds of hours of study, deliberation, and conversation, most of which is focused on a single question: "Can I make this business work?"
That process is healthy and necessary. It involves market research and number crunching and presentations and conjecture and coffee, all of which are critical elements of business success.
Invariably, the process also involves a great deal of self-examination. The core question isn't just "Can this business work at all?" but rather, "Can I make this business work?" This, too, is healthy and necessary. I've seen research studies that show that self-awareness is the number one factor in success. There is no substitute for knowing your own abilities and limitations.
But the self-examination stuff usually includes some basic worrying as well. Entrepreneurs tend to worry about the mistakes they might make. Unlike all the other research and study and deliberation that happens in the formation of a new company, this worrying actually isn't all that helpful.
Continuing to quote only from the giants of the technology industry, let me now cite a remark made by Thomas J. Watson, Sr., founder and former CEO of IBM:
I don't think Watson advocated courage to the point of recklessness. After all, I'm sure IBM did plenty of prudent market research and planning during his tenure.
But Watson makes a very important point for new entrepreneurs: Mistakes just don't need to be all that scary.
Endless Decision-Making
Life in a small ISV feels like a never-ending stream of decisions, many of which you were never trained to make:
None of my college classes taught me how to make these choices, so I had to learn by doing. Actually it would be more accurate to say that I learned this stuff by doing it badly. In the seven years since I started SourceGear, I have made lots and lots of mistakes. Although the memories of my failures sometimes sting, the lessons I have learned have been so valuable.
Through all these mistakes I have learned an important distinction. Whenever a decision yields bad results we call it a "mistake," but actually "clueless errors" are quite different from "bad bets."
Clueless Errors
In high school I once cost my math team a trophy by writing down "102/17" as my answer. I did all the calculations correctly, but I failed to realize that this fraction can be further reduced to "6". Leaving my answer in the incorrect form was not