{"id":5888,"date":"2013-12-21T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2013-12-21T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/creator\/?p=3931"},"modified":"2020-04-03T15:57:50","modified_gmt":"2020-04-03T19:57:50","slug":"5-buzzwords-tech-startups-need-kill-right-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wework.com\/ideas\/professional-development\/5-buzzwords-tech-startups-need-kill-right-now","title":{"rendered":"Five buzzwords tech startups need to kill right now"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you watch 30 Rock, you’ve undoubtedly seen the scene in which Jack Donaghy spouts off the importance of synergy, followed by about ten other buzzwords that just don\u2019t make any sense at all. That\u2019s the joke.\u00a0Industries love their buzzwords, but perhaps none as much so as the tech business.<\/a>\u00a0There are tons of buzzwords new start-ups will use to market themselves. Sure, some are necessary: they\u2019re a more efficient way of conveying what you mean. But others don\u2019t mean what you think they mean, and in fact, might even convey something other than what you\u2019re hoping to say.<\/p>\n

Innovative<\/h3>\n

If you\u2019re calling your start-up innovative, you\u2019re being redundant. Most start-ups are at least\u00a0kind of\u00a0innovative, but there are really two kinds of innovation. You can either be breaking through a wall, or you can take a path that someone else has already taken. Take Palm, for instance. When Palm introduced the Pilot, they had to spend a lot of time and money explaining what it actually was. After that, though, there was an explosion of new companies releasing Pilots. Palm was the true innovator\u2014the others made a few tweaks they thought made it better. Stop saying you\u2019re innovative and\u00a0show\u00a0us why you are.<\/p>\n

The Next Big Thing<\/h3>\n

Sure, your new start-up project is certainly your next big thing, but the odds are really against it being\u00a0the\u00a0next big thing. Your start-up, try as you might, will most likely not explode in the proportions that Facebook did. You just really aren\u2019t being realistic or honest with yourself if you believe this. Stop saying it, and put the work behind it to make it big. Don\u2019t rely on people to just take your word for it.<\/p>\n

Mission Critical<\/h3>\n

I hear a lot of entrepreneurs talk about their start-ups like they\u2019re an army going to war against the big guys. They\u2019ll call certain aspects of meetings or development \u201cmission critical.\u201d You\u2019re doing it wrong. Look into\u00a0The Art of War, an old military treatise written by Sun Tzu. Learn the real tactics behind war, and figure out how they actually apply to what you\u2019re doing. You\u2019ll realize the points you\u2019re focusing on aren\u2019t all that mission critical after all.<\/p>\n

Market Fit<\/h3>\n

Sure, I can take your word on the fact that your product is a market fit in my market, but I would much rather see hard data\u2014data you should collect in the initial phases of starting your business\u2014and make my own decision. As a start-up, you should know where you fit in, what your wheelhouse is. If you tell people you\u2019re a market fit and don\u2019t provide some kind of white paper, it shows that you didn\u2019t do your legwork.<\/p>\n

Sexy<\/h3>\n

Hiring good user interface people has become the new thing, and it\u2019s all about making a product look and feel good. Unfortunately, because good UI people are hard to find\u2014there just aren\u2019t that many of them\u2014some start-ups have taken to mimicking another design. When they talk about it, they say, \u201csexy.\u201d Yeah, it\u2019s sexy, but is it new or different? Doesn\u2019t the style speak for itself? Do you need to label it? More often than not, \u201csexy\u201d is just referring to another design that has been copied, and isn\u2019t unique. When you produce something with a UI that\u2019s unique, the only word you\u2019ll hear is, \u201cWow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you watch 30 Rock, you’ve undoubtedly seen the scene in which Jack Donaghy spouts off the importance of synergy, followed by about ten other buzzwords that just don\u2019t make any sense at all. That\u2019s the joke.\u00a0Industries love their buzzwords, but perhaps none as much so as the tech business.\u00a0There are tons of buzzwords new […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1027,"featured_media":34115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43902],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-professional-development"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFive buzzwords tech startups need to kill right now<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"If you watch 30 Rock, you've undoubtedly seen the scene in which Jack Donaghy spouts off the importance of synergy, followed by about ten other buzzwords \u2026\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link 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