It seems to me that startups fail for one or more of these two basic reasons: (1) The product can't make money. (Corollary: at first, the product only needs to

It seems to me that startups fail for one or more of these two basic reasons: (1) The product can't make money. (Corollary: at first, the product only needs to convince investors it can make money, and then it can be sold to large web firms for great profit.) (2) The firm can't complete the product. I have seen all combinations of the two above. I think the tendency on a lot of self-help websites is to try to give advice for accomplishing a product according to what has worked for other people. However, any startup is a business, and the principles of the two rules above still apply: find something that you can sell, and then find a way to accomplish at least a 1.0 version of it.