1. Bad breakups can be quite motivational
In the beginning of the movie, Mark Zuckerberg is seen breaking up with his girlfriend Erica Albright. It seems as if Mark is so pissed off by the event that he rushes to his dorm room at Harvard and gets cracking on an idea that was just flying around, FaceMash. It’s that sudden craving to do something that would put his mind off the entire break up episode that leads to the first viral product to ship out from Mark’s dorm room. So the next time you break up, make sure it’s big enough to motivate you into something productive.
2. Putting ideas into motion is the key to success
Mark Zuckerberg could have just developed FaceMash on a localhost and went off to sleep. He was drunk, excited and determined to push his idea into production. That’s exactly what he did and that’s exactly what you should be doing. Shipping out a prototype shouldn’t take one weekend of a hardcore programming hackathon. Everyone has an idea and what matters is how quickly and efficiently you put it into motion.
3. Your college buddies are your first end-users
When you look for an audience for your prototype, don’t look too far. Your friends, especially non-techies, are your best bet. They’re an awesome source of unbiased first person review. They will also be your prospective evangelists who’ll help you spread the word around, if they fall in love with your product. In The Social Network, Mark simply e-mails a link to FaceMash to only a few of his friends who end up enjoying the site and share the link with their friends and so until FaceMash spreads to all over the Harvard campus.
4. It’s cool to listen to other’s ideas and chew on it
Mark Zuckerberg is a smart ass. But no over smart. He did listen to the Winklevoss twins and Divya Narendra when they approached him with their idea. May be he had something else cooking in his mind at that time when he actually agreed to work for them, may be he did chew on their idea for some time but it’s always smart to listen to what people have to say. This is how big ideas can come from. So the next time your nagging girlfriend is discussing a tech issue she’s facing, there might just be another start up hidden somewhere there.
5. Temptations may arise in many forms
Sean Parker arrives at the scene with such bling that everyone around him is charmed by his appearance. Even Mark Zuckerberg felt Sean had a great point to make. I’m not saying it was not wise to take his opinion, I mean the guy is responsible to get the ‘the’ off Facebook (ah! Thank Sean for that!). I just want to make a point that staying away from temptations can be both good and bad. In your case, please make sure you think about both sides of the coin before making your choice.
6. Go viral and VCs would kiss your feet
What worked for Mark and his team, what worked for Facebook was – it went viral. People were using it, they were addicted to it and all that the Facebook team needed to do was to come up with a great product that people will love more and more. Going viral also helped them come one step closer to raising money. Of course saying just one step would be a big undervalue.
7. Don’t worry about getting sued
If Mark would have dropped the idea of developing Facebook with the thought that three fellow Harvard students might sue him later in the future, he wouldn’t have been a billionaire. I’m not advising you to jump into risky affairs and not care, intellectual property rights must be followed like a religion. You won’t get too far if you’re crossing your legal limits but too much worrying about getting sued for nothing isn’t healthy for your product at all. Of course, you don’t get to 500 million friends without making a few enemies.
Article by Harry
Harry has written 465 awesome articles on HarryJerry.com.
About: ...an engineering student, a freelancer, a professional blogger, a loving lover, too shy, an Internet freak....and everything I shouldn't be.
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Tags: advice, hollywood, mark zuckerberg, start-up, the social network
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