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The last two sins are the founder sins. #10 (not planning to fail) is hubris — the belief that v1 will work. #11 (developing technology not products) is ego — the desire to be impressive over the desire to be useful. They're the hardest to catch because they're not project-level decisions; they're personality patterns. The cure is structural — make failure planning and product orientation institutional habits, not founder vibes.
The last two sins and how they wreck startups specifically.
Use these three in order. Each builds on the one before.
Explain in one paragraph the difference between hubris (Sin #10) and ego (Sin #11) — both are about the founder, but they're different.
Walk me through how Sin #11 specifically kills tech-heavy startups even when the technology is genuinely good.
Given a founder-led startup with strong tech and weak product framing, how do you (as PM) reorient the team toward outcomes without alienating the founder?
SIN #10: NOT PLANNING TO FAIL
The pattern:
All scenarios in the plan assume v1 works.
No contingency for: dead chip, failed cert, factory delay, supplier issue.
When (not if) one of these hits, the team is paralyzed.
Cohen's framing:
You will have unknowns. You will not be able to enumerate them. But you
can budget time + money for "things we couldn't predict" — a 20% buffer
on everything important.
More importantly: have a Plan B for each major dependency.
- Chip: identify a backup-compatible chip.
- Supplier: pre-qualify two.
- Certification: know what happens if v1 fails the cert (resubmit cost,
schedule impact).
- Critical engineer: ensure no single point of failure.
HARDWARE TRACK:
Cohen's specific example: startup builds connected device with a
custom Wi-Fi/BLE chip from a single vendor. Vendor announces EOL
mid-project. No backup chip, no plan B. Re-spin: 6 months.
Pre-qualify a second source for every critical component. The cost is
worth more than the security.
SOFTWARE ANALOGUE:
Same pattern, different specifics:
- Single cloud vendor (AWS / GCP / Azure) — what if outage?
- Single auth provider (Auth0 / Clerk / Cognito) — what if their
pricing changes 10x?
- Single payment processor (Stripe) — what if they freeze you?
- Single key engineer with all the system knowledge.
Plan B for each:
- Multi-cloud abstraction (or at least, a "what if AWS is down" plan).
- Auth interface designed for replacement.
- Payment routing logic.
- Documentation + rotational ownership.
SIN #11: DEVELOPING TECHNOLOGY RATHER THAN PRODUCTS
The pattern:
Founder is obsessed with a cool technical capability.
Product is built TO SHOWCASE the tech.
Market doesn't care about the tech; they care about a problem.
Founder doubles down on "marketing this better."
Two years and $5M later, no customers.
Cohen's framing:
Customers don't buy technology. They buy outcomes.
The product question is: "What user outcome does this enable?"
Not: "Look at this clever thing."
If you can't articulate the outcome in user words (not engineer words)
in one sentence, you have Sin #11.
HARDWARE TRACK:
Cohen's specific example: founder builds device using neural network
on edge silicon (cool!). Markets it as "AI-enabled" + a generic spec
list. Customer hears: meh.
Re-frame: same product, market as "the only device that warns you
before a fall." Same tech. Different framing. Different outcome.
SOFTWARE ANALOGUE:
Even more common in software:
- "Built on blockchain!" (customer: I don't care)
- "Powered by GPT-4!" (customer: I don't care)
- "Microservices architecture!" (customer: I don't care)
Customer cares about: faster, cheaper, less work, fewer surprises.
Translate the tech into that frame.
THIS MODULE'S FOCUS:
Two diagnostic questions for your current project:
1. If [critical dependency X] failed tomorrow, what would we do?
(No good answer → Sin #10 live.)
2. Can the value of the product be stated in plain-language outcomes
without naming any specific tech?
(No → Sin #11 live.)
Honest self-diagnosis is the entire game here.