Why have I failed as an entrepreneur ?

• I knew everything.
• made a good sprint, but couldn't finish the run. No more oxygen/energy.

General

• did not take care myself; emotionally and physically
• did not listen people very well. I've heard them but did not actually listen. I kept on talking and talking.
• being an expat and entrepreneur is somewhat crazy when you know you're going to have visa problems. Too much instability in one man's life drains too much energy.
• did not use my time wisely
• tried to do too much
• should be less harsh on myself and others
• was(am) stubborn when I should not be
• was inconsistent ( ran ~90km in June '12 then in the last 6 months I only ran 30km )
• did not ask for help

Business

• never did true problem description. Should have write it down
• should have connected with more people. Relationships matter a lot.
• did not plan ahead the business
• do not write a 100 page business plan does not mean don't write it at all
• started working on other ideas and lost focus when business needed the most
• should take the money when a beta user offered to pay
• should have postpone opening company till we have a paying customer base.
• should have asked money from people
• rather than having a $400 Amazon EC2 instance, €30 p/m server was enough.

Programming

• scalability problems should be solved when there are scalability problems.
• have stuck in maker's obsession
• wrote too much code. 30% became immediately unnecessary
• did not prioritize what I should be working next
• should have learnt Celery before
• should have learnt Flask before
• more Backbone less spagetti JS.
• less code, less code, less code.
• my job is not programming. My job is delivering value using programming.

The Product

• should release the app much more earlier
• should have fixed the showstopper bug and email users a.s.a.p. to say that we're sorry. ( Some users registered and tried the app when they shouldn't but since I left the Google login open, they've registered and saw a non-working app )
• did not look for a market very well
• did not able to explain the product in simple terms
• did not try to sell the product, I've just build it
• kept 600 people waiting for a demo while having a product
• should have integrated payment gateway much more earlier
• Facebook & Twitter do not have quality content

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I am a fool. A big one.