1. It's very difficult to make a sane user interface without letting customers try whatever you come up with. Tweaks are always needed. If your app is like most

1. It's very difficult to make a sane user interface without letting customers try whatever you come up with. Tweaks are always needed. If your app is like most, a small portion is the most used, and you simply focus your energy improving that section. Also, your first customers are early adopters and are very capable of using bad interfaces. You get this, but you aren't doing it! This is why he wrote this, heed the advice :) Also, don't ever stop a startup because someone else is doing it. Name an industry with only one company... With only 10!! If anything it validates the market. At my first startup we consciously decided not to build a new product that was going to face many other entrants, despite the fact that we were experts in that domain. Guess what - the next year, 3 of the top 10 best sellers were in that category! Expensive lesson learned. And in case you think "well why should I follow pg's advice," then go read a copy of Rules for Revolutionaries by Guy Kawasaki. Same basic ideas, only about 20 years before! Good luck.