Be honest: when was the last time you genuinely craved a hamburger from McDonald’s? I didn’t ask when the last time you actually went to McDonald’s was. My guess is you’ve been to McDonald’s at least once in the past few months. Why? Because you couldn’t find greasy fries anywhere else? Because you just couldn’t resist their fresh, juicy chicken nuggets?

No. More likely you went because McDonald’s branding is so ingrained in your mind that you subconsciously associated your hunger and lack of time or money with “I’m lovin’ it.”

Come on, is McDonald’s really all that great? If he could, my roommate would interject here and give a heartfelt testimonial of the luscious Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese, his not-so-secret lover. Or perhaps the succulent Premium Grilled Chicken Ranch BLT. My personal opinion? It’s less the taste and more the perceived value that McDonald’s marketing has given him.

Maybe it’s just me. But probably not.

In this case and in many cases, it’s not what you sell—it’s how you sell it. McDonald’s is a brilliant marketing company, not a tempting hamburger company. They succeed in spite of their menu, not because of it.

In that sense, we can all learn something from those golden arches.

This post is a follow-up to my previous post, in which a friend of mine described her personal experience with Teach For America. Here, she discusses research and hard facts surrounding the effectiveness of this program, its suspicious financial position, and its political agenda.

Her words:

It is due time that Teach For America becomes a topic for public discussion. After all, Teach For America is growing at an unprecedented rate, what with Obama endorsing the organization and offering government funds to again hasten its growth. Thus, I think it is the duty of American tax payers to decide if this is a program that we want to be funding.

That said, I think it’s important to state that I do not feel my ordeal alone substantiates destroying Teach For America’s reputation. Rather, it has led me to start questioning and digging deeper into what the research is really saying about TFA. Having spent the last few weeks studying the matter, I still have a few outstanding questions.

1.      Are Teach For America teachers effective?

2.      What impact is Teach For America having on students’ lives?

3.      What is the organizations political agenda?

4.      Where is all the money going?

So, firstly, let’s address the effectiveness of TFA teachers. In asserting their teaching effectiveness, TFA most commonly turns to the 2004 Mathmatica study, using it as evidence that TFA teachers are indeed achieving significant academic gains in comparison to other teachers. However, that study is not comparing TFA teachers to traditionally certified teachers, rather it is comparing them to other alternatively certified teachers – ones who have gone through a training similar to those that TFA teachers go through. And even within that comparison, TFA does not pull that far ahead. In fact, in math, TFA students were shown to be only a month ahead of students taught by other novice teachers. That’s a far cry from the two years of growth TFA claims to accomplish.

In my understanding, there is yet to be a study comparing TFA teachers to their traditionally certified counterparts. Why that research is yet to be done baffles me. I know this sounds cynical, but I can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with TFA not willing to be involved in such a study. TFA is known for being remarkably closed lipped about its operations. Multiple media outlets have commented on this. And I know that within my region, we were repeatedly told that if anyone from the media contacted us for an interview, we were to refer them back to our regional office rather than answering their questions. So really, it would not surprise me if TFA had been approached about participating in such a study but declined. But that is pure speculation.

However, in terms of teacher effectiveness, a case was argued in San Francisco last month which ruled that the training TFA teachers are given does not constitute enough for the provisional/emergency certifications they are being handed. What does that mean? Well simply that TFA does not give enough training to build effective teachers. This point is well brought out in Dr. Barbara Torre Veltri’s recent book, Learning on Other People’s Kids: Becoming a Teach For America Teacher. Dr. Veltri has spent the last decade teaching grad school courses to TFA teachers and documenting the experiences of those teachers. Having been an emergency certified teacher herself and now having a PhD in education, Veltri creates a strong and well researched argument against the effectiveness of TFA teachers. I would refer you to her book for further details.

The next question, as to what impact TFA teachers are having on student lives, is extremely hard to answer. Yes, there are those Jason Kamras within the corps. But not every corp member goes on to be a national teacher of the year. According to Veltri’s research, by the fourth year, 90% of corp members have left teaching. This statistic stands in contrast to TFA’s statement that 60% of corp members stay in education related fields. Why the difference? Because TFA considers graduate school, law, non-profit work, and social activism as education related fields. When talking specifically about the classroom, its clear that most TFA corp members do not stick around long after their commitment. What does that mean for students? For one thing, it contributes to the instability of urban life. Teachers are dropping out just as quickly as students in some districts.

For example, since TFA alum Michelle Rhee was appointed as Chancellor of the Washington D.C. School District in 2007 she has laid-off hundreds of teachers and replaced them with TFA teachers. The result? According to Leigh Dingerson’s Fall 2010 article in Rethinking Schools, 40% of the teachers in that district are now TFA teachers and the test scores are falling. And believably so. Afterall, if 40% of all the teachers are TFA, that means that each year, 20% of the teachers are brand new. According to Veltri’s research, the most effective TFA teachers are ones who are able to secure a veteran teacher within their school to mentor them or who turn to their own teachers for help. However, in schools that are highly saturated with TFA teachers who come in for two years and then leave, veteran teachers have little incentive to invest so much time into the development and mentoring of non-professional teachers.

What does that mean? Simply, teaching used to be seen as a career – something that you trained to do for four years in college. Something that you planned on doing your entire life. However, with the advent of TFA, teaching has began a transformation – changing teaching from a career to a job, thus earning TFA the nickname “Teach For a Resume.” Thus, in claiming to close the achievement gap, TFA is exploiting the populations most in need of experienced teachers. It is perpetuating teacher turn over and overlooking the needs of students.

Question 3: What’s this about a political agenda? Well, let’s rewind and take a look at the root of TFA. As is well known, Teach For America grew out of founder Wendy Kopp’s senior thesis. As a sociology major at Princeton, she came up with an idea to end educational inequity in America. However, it is interesting to note that she wrote her thesis and made the plan without ever having set foot in an urban classroom. And she did not plan to act on her thesis until she did not get any of the jobs she wanted coming out of college. Then, in 1990, even before a single TFA teacher had set foot in a classroom, the media began its love affair with the organization, according to Barbara Miner’s Spring 2010 article in Rethinking Schools. Since then, TFA has, for the most part, continued to entrance America as the all-American organization. And of course, no one wants to challenge an organization that is almost as American as apple pie.

You see, to further protect and promote themselves, TFA has founded a branch off organization, Leadership for Educational Equity. What’s their goal? Have 100 TFA alums in elected office in 2010. Why? So that TFA alums can seize control of school districts like in DC? Who knows. But it definitely is interesting to see TFA positioning themselves in a position of political power at a time when the corps is growing and yet hundreds of certified teachers are being laid off. As a side note, yes some of those teachers are not doing their job and should be laid off, but others are excellent teachers, such as in the case of Sacramento’s teacher of the year who had actually been laid off just prior to receiving her trophy.

So, last question. Where’s all the money going? Last year TFA received $165 million in donations. That’s a large chunk of cash. Yet, a lot of that never sees the students. According to Miner, in 2008 Wendy Kopp made $265,585, with an additional $17,027 in benefits and deferred compensation. She also made an additional $71,021 in compensation and benefits. Seven other TFA staffers are listed as making more than $200,000 in pay and benefits, with another four approaching that amount. An interesting side note is that Kopp is married to Richard Barth, the leader of KIPP. In 2008 he made more than $300,000 in pay and benefits. Thus, this couple who applauds themselves for brining education to the poor are pocketing over $600,000 a year. That’s nuts!

Seriously though, I can’t help but wonder where TFA spends its money.  After all, the school I taught in had no money for school supplies. I asked TFA.  They had no funds to offer either.  So I ended up using my own money to buy just the basic things like paper and pencils. Shouldn’t an organization that collects millions of dollars to help impoverished children get an education be spending some of that money on the students?  So maybe I am a little fanatical, but I think the $165 million each year could be better spent.  Rather than recruiting and training teachers, who for the most part, will leave education in two years, funds could be used to support professional educators working in the toughest schools in this nation.

Underlying this entire discussion is the understanding that the American educational system is broken and needs to be fixed.  However, Teach For America is not the means of addressing that issue.

Think for a moment about the school district you grew up in.  What do you think would happen if the superintendant one day announced that the district was going to lay off the teachers who taught you and replace them with kids, straight out of college, who have had only five weeks of training?  The superintendant then assures everyone that it’s going to work just fine.  After all, these college grads aren’t just average – they graduated from 500 of the top universities in the nation and are guaranteed to be really good teachers by a woman who has no background in education.

I know that in my community, an announcement like that would be met by an angry mob.  People would protest and call for the superintendant’s resignation.  Community members would rally around the teachers they love.  All in all, it would not be accepted.  Yet, that is what is happening in disadvantaged school districts throughout the nation.  And somehow it would be okay, since it is just the poor kids, the ones who are behind in school anyway, who are being impacted.  So maybe in communities where students are used to being warned that the cops are coming, we should spend more time warning them that the Kopp is coming.  After all, Teach For America is not the solution; rather, it is the nation’s most prestigious temp agency.

ATTENTION: Whatever else you do today, please read this. Here’s the summary:

One of my good friends (who will remain anonymous for reasons you’ll discover below) recently suffered unbelievable physical, mental, and emotional abuse while teaching for an organization called Teach For America (TFA). She has since been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and her experience was by no means isolated—TFA cares little about the welfare of those who are trying to better the lives of others by signing up to teach. However, TFA has used every type of threat and scare tactic to prevent stories like this from getting out.

That’s why we need your help. Please read this, leave a comment, and pass it on. The purpose of this is to expose this organization and to prevent the same thing from happening to other unsuspecting victims.

“I have come to distinguish between the generally hard-working, smart, and idealistic TFA classroom teachers, and a national organization that is as sophisticated, slippery, and media savvy as any group I have ever written about.” – Barbara Miner, Rethinking Schools, 2010

This is the story in her own words:

“One day, all children in this nation will have the opportunity to attain an excellent education.” An incredible promise and motto. I heard it and was immediately hooked – I wanted to Teach For America; I wanted to give other children the same thing I had been given – an excellent education, something every person should have access to.

Curious about exactly what to expect as a Teach For America corps member, I started asking friends what they knew about the organization. I did some Google searches, talked with some former and current corps members, and decided to apply. Everything I heard was so positive – Teach For America was known for recruiting the most promising young leaders in the nation and placing them in classrooms across the nation that would be otherwise un-staffed.

I applied in November and in January was informed that I had been accepted and would be teaching middle school science. In June I flew to my assigned region to meet the TFA staff and begin my training. It was an exciting time, but part of the training felt strange to me. I remember in particular being told that if a principal asked me where I saw myself in two years (when my contract with TFA was up), that I should not give my real plans but instead make it sound like I planned to stay in education longer.

Despite my immediate ethical questioning, I remained silent and went on to the next phase of training – a five-week teacher boot camp. During this camp I was assigned to teach Algebra, despite my mathematical deficiencies (I got a D+ in the only math class I took in college). I was immediately thrown into a classroom teaching summer school. I hardly slept for those five weeks since every night was spent trying to learn the content and then figure out how to explain a concept I had just taught myself. The education I gave my students was far from excellent, but I was assured that I was progressing on track.

Upon returning to my assigned region, I did not find the job I had been promised. Instead, I found headlines announcing that the school district had laid off hundreds of employees just weeks before school started. Nervous about what this meant for me, I contacted TFA and was assured that I would have a job. Hundreds of fully certified, experienced teachers were out of jobs, but me, an untrained novice teacher would have a position. It didn’t make sense to me. I waited two weeks. School started. And I waited another two weeks. Then the phone call came – I was going to start teaching on Monday, but I would not find out what I would teach until I showed up.

It was a bittersweet moment. It felt good to know I finally had a concrete job. But at the same time, I was intimidated by my assignment. Every day the school would produce some headline story. “Security guard thrown down stairs.” “Gang fights break out.” “Continued police action.” The school, which last year was one of the best in the district, grew from a population of 600 students last year to over 1,600. Rival schools were combined. And budget cuts led to the closing of the alternative high school. The result was a violent explosion within the halls of one of the city’s education landmarks.

Thinking I was fully aware of the circumstance, I did my best to prepare throughout the weekend. I crafted a lesson that could be adapted to multiple grade levels and subjects since the building houses 7-12 grades. But nothing could have prepared me for what I found when I arrived. I must admit that I was naively excited about my first day of school. After all, I had been accepted into Teach For America in January and since then had been focused on preparing for my students. This was supposed to be a big moment for me. I finally was making my dream a reality.

When I arrived at the school on Monday morning and introduced myself, a man without introduction quickly walked me to a classroom and handed me a slip of paper stating which periods I would have students and that the title of the course was “Ramp Up Lit 8”. I had no clue what that meant. But before I could ask questions, the man was gone and I was alone in the room.

I surveyed the space, wondering how in the world I was going to make it look and feel like a safe learning environment. The walls and desks were boldly tagged with sexually explicit messages, catching your eye the moment you walked into the room. Most of the cabinets had their handles torn off, and the fronts from all the drawers were missing. The classroom appeared to have been used as a storage room for the school, with half the space being filled with stacks of tables, desks, and chairs. Scattered through the furniture were shards of broken glass, presumably from a fight which had broken out earlier. I quickly went about setting the desks into rows – fixing the upturned furniture and sorting out the broken pieces. Wondering how long I had until students arrived, I realized the classroom was equipped with a clock that could not keep time and was without a phone. I was completely isolated.

As students filed in, a nightmare began to unfold. Since school had started two weeks earlier, the students already had their routine down – they had disrespected substitutes and taken control of the room, turning it into the war zone I saw when I walked through the door. I had no class roster, so I had no way of knowing which students were actually supposed to be in my room or how many to expect. As though rehearsed, when asked for names, each student repeated the same false name and offered explicit commentary on me as a teacher (“I bet your boyfriend loves to f*** you up,” “How often does he f*** you?”, “I would tap that”) and what they were going to do to me (“You won’t make it a week, we’ll make sure of that,” “We will run you out one way or another”).

During fourth period, things escalated. Nearly 35 students marched into my room (only 24 were registered for the class), each daring me to try to take control. As I started trying to teach, a student slipped out of his desk and turned off the lights in the room. Having no windows, the room became pitch black. Screams and horrific noises immediately filled the air. I ran to the light switch to turn the lights on and discovered a large student standing in front of it that I had to physically fight to turn the lights back on. When I did, I found a scene of chaos. Students had been throwing desks, punching each other, and had taken everything from my desk and thrown it on the floor. I was outraged and made that clear to my students. However, they were unaffected. Ten minutes later, the exact same scene played out. Unsure what to do, I announced that the rest of the class time would be spent in silence and that students would be dismissed to lunch five minutes late. The class erupted in laughter. There was no silent time. And though I stood in front of the door at the dismissal bell, the students charged out, shoving me out of the way and partially trampling me.

I was determined to make the next day better. I explained what had happened to the principal, and he advised me to keep my cell phone on me at all times so if a problem arose I could quickly call for security. Sure enough, a fight broke out the next day. I pulled out my phone, dialed security, and stepped away to break it up. Three large security officers reported to my room. Yet that did nothing but escalate the problem – my students rose to their feet and began yelling at the officers who soon left my room without resolving the conflict. As the door closed behind them, I realized my cell phone had been stolen. Once again I was without protection as the class erupted into chaos. Fortunately, the principal, walking by and hearing the riot within my room, walked in and immediately expelled a student who was throwing a desk.

My ears were burning from the unthinkable profanities my students were yelling at me, from the sexual harassment I was receiving from my students, and from the literal threats that had been made against me and my life. But I was not a quitter and was determined to make things work.

Day three. My alarm went off at 4:30 and my body ached from the abuses of the previous two days. I snoozed for another half an hour before getting out of bed and beginning the preparations for the day. I got cleaned up. Ran to the store to grab some supplies I needed for the day and got to school early to once again, clean up my classroom and get set up for the day. Today was going to be a good day. We had finally gotten the curriculum for the course and I felt confident that things were going to turn around. They had to.

Once again, the day erupted into chaos the second my students arrived. A fight broke out in the hall outside my door and was moved into my room. It was a bad start to the day yet I persisted. My students fought me each step of the way though – they were out of the seats and in my face, refusing to participate or comply. Then the door opened and in walked a security guard, the principal, and the superintendent. While those three stood in the back of my room, the class became magically manageable. It was a glimmer of hope. But my heart recoiled as they walked out after a few short minutes. And the riot resumed. No more than fifteen minutes later, a storm knocked out the power and my room was once again thrown into darkness and violence. Remembering the horror of two days earlier, I tried to regain control of the room. I pulled out my new cell phone and used it as a light at the front of the room as I yelled instructions to the class. The power was restored right as a student, no more than five feet away from me, threw a chair at me. It hit with remarkable force, nicking my knee and sending immediate pain up and down my leg.

After lunch, I once again put on a smile and attempted to make the best of the situation. My fifth period was by far my most out of control class. I knew that if I could hold on through that hour, I would be okay for the rest of the day. But as students began their usual routine of taunting and challenging, the image of the chair flying at me came back to my mind. My ears rang with the voice yelling, “Yo, you stupid. Shut up. If I had a gun I would shut you up forever.” And another warning, “You better watch you back because if I get the chance, I will rape you.” At that point, there was no fighting it. Tears welled up in my eyes and flowed down my cheeks.

I had cried several times during the preceding days, but never in front of my students. And I knew immediately it was a mistake. “Oh, the baby is crying.” “Just can’t take it.” “Stupid white girl, go back where you’re from.” “You’re gonna cry over this?” “Just wait until you see what’s coming next!” “Boo hoo, like we care!”

I was sobbing. I was exhausted. I was defiled. I was terrified. And I was done. I went to the 8th grade administrator’s office and told him that I needed to resign.

When I reported what had happened to TFA, they said they understood me taking the afternoon off but that I had to return to my classroom the next day. I refused. I told my supervisor that I could not go back in there. She said I had two days to think things through. When we met again, I was offered a different position within the same school. I once again rejected, since I would not have any protection from the students who had terrorized me. She said that my contract did not make allowance for my requests and I needed to get back to work. Our conversation concluded with me saying I wanted and needed out of Teach For America.

I flew home the next day to be with my family. I spent days staring at the wall, terrified to leave my house. I could not handle being alone or being in the dark – I slept with the lights on and woke myself up screaming in response to nightmares of my students finding me. I was destroyed.

I decided to write a blog post explaining to my family and friends in accurate detail what had happened. In an unbelievable disregard for my first amendment rights, TFA threatened to sue me if I didn’t remove the blog post immediately. Suddenly I realized why my initial research of the organization seemed so positive. TFA also informed me that since I had left the corps without a legitimate reason, I had 30 days to pay back all funds that I had received. In addition, they said that since I had left the corps, they were in no way responsible for what happened to me and I was on my own. They concluded that I was to blame for my violent classroom.

It has now been three weeks since I walked out of my classroom, but I still feel trapped in the situation. The nightmares are real. The constant fear is inhibiting. And I have found that I am not alone in my experience. As documented by Dr. Barbara Torre Veltri in her book, Learning on Other People’s Kids: Becoming a Teach For America Teacher, hundreds and hundreds of Teach For America recruits have faced the same nightmare as me.

Yet, somehow, TFA continues to have an untarnished reputation. Corps members, afraid of what will happen if they speak out, remain silent as the organization grows into a force to be reckoned with. This last year, TFA received $165 million in donations from the government and private donors who believe the organization is bringing an excellent education to students who would otherwise be without teachers. This is far from the reality. Our country is seeing an educational revolution where certified and experienced teachers are being replaced by novices who are cheaper, perpetuating the very problem TFA claims to be solving.

Help spread the word: Start by leaving a comment and passing along the story.

For an added reference, click here.

My good friend Terry Smith tipped me off on this excellent commentary of Obamanized political expediency at its finest. Broken campaign promises are a way of life for Obama.

Maybe THIS is why I’m not a millionaire at 24.

“Is there anything more beautiful than a beautiful, beautiful flamingo, flying across in front of a beautiful sunset? And he’s carrying a beautiful rose in his beak, and also he’s carrying a very beautiful painting with his feet. And also, you’re drunk.”

-Jack Handey

This is my first stride towards getting back into blogging. Enjoy.

I’m currently in the early stages of starting a web company, and when I came across the article below (no, unfortunately I can’t claim it as my own) it really resonated with me. Lots of helpful advice for anyone involved in a web startup.

Oh, and it was written by Evan Williams. He started a little thing called Blogger. And also a little thing called Twitter. I’d say he knows what he’s talking about.

10 Lessons of a Web Startup

#1: Be Narrow

Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there’s less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there’s a resistance to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage.

#2: Be Different

Ideas are in the air. There are lots of people thinking about—and probably working on—the same thing you are. And one of them is Google. Deal with it. How? First of all, realize that no sufficiently interesting space will be limited to one player. In a sense, competition actually is good—especially to legitimize new markets. Second, see #1—the specialist will almost always kick the generalist’s butt. Third, consider doing something that’s not so cutting edge. Many highly successful companies—the aforementioned big G being one—have thrived by taking on areas that everyone thought were done and redoing them right. Also? Get a good, non-generic name. Easier said than done, granted. But the most common mistake in naming is trying to be too descriptive, which leads to lots of hard-to-distinguish names. How many blogging companies have “blog” in their name, RSS companies “feed,” or podcasting companies “pod” or “cast”? Rarely are they the ones that stand out.

#3: Be Casual

We’re moving into what I call the era of the “Casual Web” (and casual content creation). This is much bigger than the hobbyist web or the professional web. Why? Because people have lives. And now, people with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the really big home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed, help—people’s everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or identity change. Flickr enables personal publishing among millions of folks who would never consider themselves personal publishers—they’re just sharing pictures with friends and family, a casual activity. Casual games are huge. Skype enables casual conversations.

#4: Be Picky

Another perennial business rule, and it applies to everything you do: features, employees, investors, partners, press opportunities. Startups are often too eager to accept people or ideas into their world. You can almost always afford to wait if something doesn’t feel just right, and false negatives are usually better than false positives. One of Google’s biggest strengths—and sources of frustration for outsiders—was their willingness to say no to opportunities, easy money, potential employees, and deals.

#5: Be User-Centric

User experience is everything. It always has been, but it’s still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don’t know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board. Better to iterate a hundred times to get the right feature right than to add a hundred more. The point of Ajax is that it can make a site more responsive, not that it’s sexy. Tags can make things easier to find and classify, but maybe not in your application. The point of an API is so developers can add value for users, not to impress the geeks. Don’t get sidetracked by technologies or the blog-worthiness of your next feature. Always focus on the user and all will be well.

#6: Be Self-Centered

Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch. Create something you want to exist in the world. Be a user of your own product. Hire people who are users of your product. Make it better based on your own desires. (But don’t trick yourself into thinking you are your user, when it comes to usability.) Another aspect of this is to not get seduced into doing deals with big companies at the expense or your users or at the expense of making your product better. When you’re small and they’re big, it’s hard to say no, but see #4.

#7: Be Greedy

It’s always good to have options. One of the best ways to do that is to have income. While it’s true that traffic is now again actually worth something, the give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy stamps an expiration date on your company’s butt. In other words, design something to charge for into your product and start taking money within 6 months (and do it with PayPal). Done right, charging money can actually accelerate growth, not impede it, because then you have something to fuel marketing costs with. More importantly, having money coming in the door puts you in a much more powerful position when it comes to your next round of funding or acquisition talks. In fact, consider whether you need to have a free version at all. The TypePad approach—taking the high-end position in the market—makes for a great business model in the right market. Less support. Less scalability concerns. Less abuse. And much higher margins.

#8: Be Tiny

It’s standard web startup wisdom by now that with the substantially lower costs to starting something on the web, the difficulty of IPOs, and the willingness of the big guys to shell out for small teams doing innovative stuff, the most likely end game if you’re successful is acquisition. Acquisitions are much easier if they’re small. And small acquisitions are possible if valuations are kept low from the get go. And keeping valuations low is possible because it doesn’t cost much to start something anymore (especially if you keep the scope narrow). Besides the obvious techniques, one way to do this is to use turnkey services to lower your overhead—Administaff, ServerBeach, web apps, maybe even Elance.

#9: Be Agile

You know that old saw about a plane flying from California to Hawaii being off course 99% of the time—but constantly correcting? The same is true of successful startups—except they may start out heading toward Alaska. Many dot-com bubble companies that died could have eventually been successful had they been able to adjust and change their plans instead of running as fast as they could until they burned out, based on their initial assumptions. Pyra was started to build a project-management app, not Blogger. Flickr’s company was building a game. Ebay was going to sell auction software. Initial assumptions are almost always wrong. That’s why the waterfall approach to building software is obsolete in favor agile techniques. The same philosophy should be applied to building a company.

#10: Be Balanced

What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled, balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work. Yes, high levels of commitment are crucial. And yes, crunch times come and sometimes require an inordinate, painful, apologies-to-the-SO amount of work. But it can’t be all the time. Nature requires balance for health—as do the bodies and minds who work for you and, without which, your company will be worthless. There is no better way to maintain balance and lower your stress that I’ve found than David Allen’s GTD process. Learn it. Live it. Make it a part of your company, and you’ll have a secret weapon.

#11 (Bonus!): Be Wary

Overgeneralized lists of business “rules” are not to be taken too literally. There are exceptions to everything.

Source: http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/4giAnf/davidhieatt.typepad.com/doonethingwell/2010/01/10-lessons-of-a-web-start-up.html/r:t