These are the only things you need to do to be successful*. You can get away with just doing one of the two, but that's rare, and usually someone else is doing the other part for you.If you you don't have any marketable skills, learn some. It's the future. We have Khan Academy and Wikipedia and Codecademy and almost the entire world's collective knowledge at your fingertips. Use it.Then make something that you can talk about. Make something cool. Something interesting. Spend time on it. Go crazy. Even if it's the least useful thing you've ever made, if you can talk about it, make it. This part...

Roughly a month ago, I decided to give blogging another try, in earnest. I put out an article most days and up to 3 per day when I was experimenting with new channels.It has been fascinating.That being said, this is not a post about blogging tactics. It’s about what the experience has taught me about startups.Find the customers first, then build for themIt took me a long time to understand YC’s motto that you should:Make something people want.The first time I heard that, I thought it was the single dumbest piece of advice I’d ever received from such a credible so...