Dharmesh Shah gave a presentation at the Business of Software conference called Everything I Know About Startups. He posted a video of it to his blog, OnStartups. If you’re in the software industry or work with startup companies, you should watch it. The video lasts about an hour, but the insights Dharmesh gives you will last much longer.

Dharmesh lists the ten key points from his presentation — I’ve copied them below — but you need to hear his explanation to understand the rationale behind each.

1. Your idea can suck. Just get started.

2. You can be in the middle of nowhere and still build a great business.

3. Not having cash breeds good behavior. It’s helpful to have constratints.

4. In defense of the modest outcome: You don’t HAVE to build the next Facebook. Modest liquidity events are highly under-rated.

5. “I’m a complete introvert. It’s not that I don’t like people, I just don’t like beind around them a whole lot.”

6. Something’s changed here. You don’t have to spend a lot of money to get your message out there.

7. The real issue with VC is not the cost of capital (which is high), but how hard it is to actually raise it.

8. You have to go through the 12 flaming hoops of venture capital.

9. All the time you should’ve been spending solving your customer’s problem, you use to start to solve the VC’s problem.

10. Write a blog, not a business plan.

We’ll be giving all of these points deep thought over the coming months.

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