8 proven tips to f*ck up your startup

If you think of setting up a startup, here are some proven tips to make it to a big and bombastic failure. Most of them I have tried out myself and could successfully f*ck up my own business, so you can be sure these tips are validated and with high probability will work for you too.

1. Make it innovative

Yes, your startup idea should be as innovative as possible. It is easy to check if you truly succeeded in it. Ideally, nobody should understand either your product/service or its purpose. Disregard any mental models. You are ahead of the time. And that is the only thing that matters.

2. Don’t allow anybody to do a user research

How would you then be able to manipulate the project team? No way. User needs and requirements should stay top secret. Or even better – unknown.

3. Don’t evaluate your business model

Don’t spend too much time with this piece! It is okay to come up with some idea and hope it will work. Why shouldn’t it? I mean, it is enough to believe your business might bring some money somewhen.

4. Cooperate with cheapest

As a business, you will need partners and will have to make many choices in this respect. Choosing a bank, marketing agency, programmers, some service providers you might want to get on overview of your options and ask for propositions. That is a good idea. However, when you get those, don’t bother with reading and comparing, just simply check the price and get the cheapest one on board. Don’t you ever think of their reliability or if your personalities make a good business match. Time waste it is.

5. Never bother about priorities

Do whatever you feel like doing at the moment. If you want to care about usability – sure, go for it. Who cares you have only one website visitor per week? If you feel like usability is important, go and invest your time in improving it. Other things can wait.

6. Overestimate yourself

Believe you have super powers! Actually, when you only want to, you can do everything. You could do all the legal stuff and programming for the website, launching the campaigns and accounting for the last quarter. Honestly, who said you HAVE to sleep 8 hours a day?

7. Get emotional in business discussions

That’s one of the best ways to screw it all pretty fast. Any business discussion can now be brought up to a whole new level. Transfer it into your private life, make pressure or start crying – this is how you get your visions implemented.

8. Make a baby

If all the previous tips didn’t help you ruin the business – this one will work for sure. Babies are great at consuming all of your time and energy. Once you’ve made it sleep don’t think of sleeping yourself. Try to work or clean the place or whatever else, so that very soon you’ll get a depression or at least a mental breakdown. This would impact your project performance significantly.

If it didn’t work as supposed – make one more baby. Then your startup is surely dead as hell.

I hope these tips serve you well, if not – don’t hesitate to reach out for help. And let me know how it is going 😉