Some things in this list hurt me, because I'm affected - however, the one about "social and/or marketplace startup" seems a bit broad. Could you elaborate on that?
While doing a social software startup that goes into the direction of a marketplace i noticed one thing:
Social Startups are the hardest to do because they usually rely on the critical mass of interaction and network density within the community. Basicially you are relying on other people to do your job of creating content.
The only thing that is harder is doing an marketplace, because in a market place you not only need network density you also rely on them selling the content.
They usually have a high upside if they work. The problem is to get them to work. And for some reason they are highly attractive to first time founders - like me back then.
Ok, so it's the chicken-egg problem combined with too much schlepp. What do you think of marketplaces where, initially, the founders create all the content for sale?
