Four ways to make sure your startup flops

"Fail fast. Fail cheap. Live to fight another day."

- Anonymous

Well, these four tips, if you follow them carefully, can almost guarantee that your startup business will fail. Fast and cheap are always relative.

Come late to the party. It's scheduled for 8. 8:30 or 8:45 should be no problem. You have plenty of time to wash the car before you get cleaned up.

You've probably managed to arrive late for a party at some time in your life. I have. What was it like? See if this sounds familiar.

First, nobody notices that you have arrived. The host is no longer hovering by the door to greet you. All the timely guests have formed closed groups and are engaged in earnest conversation. The best hors d' oeuvres are gone. And everyone is at least one drink ahead of you.

Palm Pre was late to the smartphone party. Need I say more?

Copy the most successful competitor. It's the music that sells, not the band. I have hundreds of CDs by bands I've never seen in person.

See if this is who you want to be. I just grabbed it off the web.

"Almost Famous is one of the best cover bands around today. That's a bold statement, but it's exactly what you'll be saying after you experience one of their shows. With a completely fired-up & kickass stage show, Almost Famous combines pure hedonistic rock & roll debauchery with some of the most talented musicians in the NY Metro Area...the majority of whom have been signed to major labels or recorded & toured with major acts around the globe."

And now they're almost famous. I'll bet they're almost rich, too.

And don't forget the all the rich Elvis impersonators.

Don't sweat the details. Attorneys and accountants are always crying wolf, just to grab some big fees. Charge ahead. You can always clean up any small messes later. Right?

OOPS!

"BlackBerry maker Research in Motion agreed to pay $612.5 million to patent holding company NTP to settle a long-running dispute that had threatened to shut down the popular wireless e-mail service for its 3 million users." Their PR team tried to spin that as a reasonable licensing fee. Um hm.

And there was Enron, etc, etc.

Don't try very hard. After all, the libraries are full of biographies of famous people who became incredibly successful by dabbling in things on a part-time basis.