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While I agree with the quote "build something useful and charge money for it; it's not rocket surgery." I think it over simplifies things. What exactly is "usef

• tptacek 14y ago
  A good way to find out if an idea is useful is to charge money for it. People come up with elaborate schemes to avoid doing that because asking for money and being turned down is a form of rejection, and rejection stings. I'll tell you from 15 years in startups, including long stints in companies I didn't run that weren't even part of my identity with customer prospects I didn't even care about: rejection always stings, will probably always sting, and you will subconsciously (to your great detriment) always avoid situations with potential reject even though you know you need to not do that. The result is a system that converges on stories that can pick up 6-18 months of funding runway without ever demonstrating value from real customers. There are businesses that need to boot up without asking for money from customers, but they're not common, and when you find one, it will be very clear why you'd defer revenue, and the answer won't have anything to do with monetizing eyeballs.