18 Startup Mistakes

Found this article by Paul Graham through Digg, and I thought it was interesting. It details 18 mistakes that cause a startup company to fail.

Here's a quick summary list. Read the article for details on each one.

1. Single Founder
   
2. Bad Location
   
3. Marginal Niche
   
4. Derivative Idea
   
5. Obstinacy
   
6. Hiring Bad Programmers
   
7. Choosing the Wrong Platform
   
8. Slowness in Launching
   
9. Launching Too Early
   
10. Having No Specific User in Mind
    
11. Raising Too Little Money
    
12. Spending Too Much
    
13. Raising Too Much Money
    
14. Poor Investor Management
    
15. Sacrificing Users to (Supposed) Profit
    
16. Not Wanting to Get Your Hands Dirty
    
17. Fights Between Founders
    
18. A Half-Hearted Effort
    

Although some of these are pretty obvious, you'd be amazed how many companies make these mistakes.