The Biggest Mistakes First-Time Founders Make

Seibel says founders can lose motivation when they pick a problem for its perceived market potential or appeal rather than a willingness to work on it for five years or more. He also advises building for users the founders care about. At Justin.tv, the team found a stronger connection with users after Emmett, a gamer, refocused the company on video game streaming, helping set the course for Twitch.

Seibel recommends choosing co-founders with an existing relationship, such as friends, former coworkers, or people who have completed a project together. That history can help founders judge whether they work well together under pressure. He also urges teams to discuss performance, shared goals, and responsibilities openly before resentment builds and turns those conversations into fights.

Founders may delay launching because they imagine major press attention, but Seibel says launch is usually less significant to users than it feels to the team. Getting a product in front of customers sooner helps test whether it solves a real problem; many consumer and B2B startups can launch an MVP in under a month, though regulated fields may require more preparation. He also says teams should track what users do so they can see what is and is not being used.

Seibel questions why founders would choose a problem if they cannot identify even a few people who have it. Finding the first one to five users should start with people founders know or people they have identified, while reaching the first hundred or thousand may require deeper work.

Seibel says founders often put press, hiring, conferences, and investors ahead of shipping and talking to users. He describes the core work as getting a product into users’ hands, learning whether they like it, and iterating. These mistakes are not universal rules, but reducing them can improve a startup’s odds.