* Killing things that are low profit margins, under some misguided Pareto Principle approach. Sometimes these things are loss leaders designed to pull customers for other products.
* Spending too much on marketing/sales before people want the product. They usually just end up burning their brand if the product is too low quality.
* Too much focus on building multiple small features rather than focusing on the value proposition.
* Trying to negotiate deadlines for product development. "We don't have two months to finish this. Let's do this in one." In software estimation, there's the estimate, the target, and the commitment. If the commitment and estimate are far off, it should be questioned why, not negotiated.
* Hiring two mediocre developers at half the salary of one good developer. They usually can't solve problems past a certain treshhold.
* Importing tech talent, rather than promoting. Usually the people who have built the product have a better understanding of the tech stack than someone else they import.
* Startups that rely on low quality people to skimp on the budget. These people later form the DNA of the company and make it difficult to improve, if they're not the type who improve themselves.
* Spending too much on marketing/sales before people want the product. They usually just end up burning their brand if the product is too low quality.
* Too much focus on building multiple small features rather than focusing on the value proposition.
* Trying to negotiate deadlines for product development. "We don't have two months to finish this. Let's do this in one." In software estimation, there's the estimate, the target, and the commitment. If the commitment and estimate are far off, it should be questioned why, not negotiated.
* Hiring two mediocre developers at half the salary of one good developer. They usually can't solve problems past a certain treshhold.
* Importing tech talent, rather than promoting. Usually the people who have built the product have a better understanding of the tech stack than someone else they import.
* Startups that rely on low quality people to skimp on the budget. These people later form the DNA of the company and make it difficult to improve, if they're not the type who improve themselves.