You going to build a bunch of services on Gopher protocol anytime soon? Require people pay large amounts of money upfront for stuff they usually get free? Expect no browser? Do a mobile solution that requires a specific device rather than smartphone?<p>There&#x27;s all kinds of products that failed for specific, sometimes-lasting reasons. You should avoid them in your next startup if those reasons or contexts still apply. Otherwise, your startup&#x27;s chance of failure just skyrocketed with little justification.<p>&quot; If everyone acted in conservative manner because they don&#x27;t want to make mistakes and be called an idiot by others, we will have much slower innovation.&quot;<p>That doesn&#x27;t contradict what I&#x27;m saying. I&#x27;m saying people shouldn&#x27;t act in an ignorant manner when confronted with data saying they&#x27;ll have problems, are having problems, or totally failed. They can be conservative or risk-takers. They just better keep lessons of history and business reality of their market in mind when making their decisions. It&#x27;s considered common sense in other aspects of life.