Some questions: I watched some of a Startup School video, maybe the most recent one. Ron Conway was interviewed, and there were other speakers. And I just re

Some questions: I watched some of a Startup School video, maybe the most recent one. Ron Conway was interviewed, and there were other speakers. And I just read Jessica Livingston's talk What Goes Wrong, 10/25/2012 at http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong.html http://www.foundersatwork.com/1/post/2012/10/what-goes-wrong... and from the post by Randell in this thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474689 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8474689 I will start with Livingston's "Making Something People Want is Hard" Here's a suggestion of another way: Step (1) Problem. Pick a problem where there is no doubt that the first good or a much better solution will result in enough eager users/customers to make a financially successful business. That is, we want a problem where plenty of people want and will like the solution very much. Here we want no doubt. Maybe the ideal such problem would be a safe, effective, cheap, one pill cure for any cancer. Step (2) Solution. For the solution, to exploit Moore's law, etc., stay in information technology and there do some original research. Step (3) Implementation. Write the software to do the data manipulations specified by the research. So, the result should be a solution to Livingston's "Making Something People Want is Hard" Livingston also warns about co-founder disputes. She has "Not making something people want is the biggest cause of failure we see early on. (The second biggest is founder disputes.)" So, here's a solution to the second biggest "cause of failure" -- be a solo founder. But Livingston also has "single founder and it's hard to do a startup as a single founder." Here she loses me: There are a lot of successful businesses, small to giant, that had solo founders. So, I'm lost on why it is such a bad idea for a solo founder to try to get a company going. Sure, once the company is growing rapidly, then take on, say, an office manager, a guy to run the server farm, a programmer, a marketing guy, etc. as needed.