I am not a big fan of "top 10" lists because my teeny tiny dinosaur brain can only remember two or three of the points, which makes me feel like I'm treading water watching eveyone else evolve their way ashore and I've left my proto-feet behind somewhere. But someone recently sent me this ancient (1994 era) email that had Bonnie McElveen-Hunter's:

The Ten Commandments For Failure

• Thou Shalt Have Little Faith
• Thou Shalt Pick Thy Partners with Wanton Abandon
• Thou Shalt Make the Quick Buck
• Thou Shalt Have No Enthusiasm
• Thou Shalt Seek Easy Street
• Thou Shalt Do It Alone
• Thou Shalt Not Be Accountable
• Thou Shalt Have No Sense of Humor
• Thou Shalt Give Nothing Back
• Thou Shalt Believe Failure is Final

Wow, there is a lot in there, but let me divide this into three piles and then I'll pick the three that I need to remind myself to remember!

No Brainers for Business Success

I think that a few of these jump out at me as being really important and obvious:

• Thou Shalt Hav No Sense of Humor
• Thou Shalt Believe Failure is Final
• Thou Shalt Not Be Accountable
• Thou Shalt Do It Alone

Anyone out there who is overly serious, self-important, arrogant, and the Lone Ranger? You are so headed for a fall. I know guys like Steve Jobs like to be the famous front man, but it's not like he's actually designed or built or programmed anything that was famous. Sure, he makes decisions and micromanges and drives people to nervous breakdowns, wait, dang, don't work for him - it's a trap!

An Embarassment of Riches

But some of these are things that most startups have too much of, not a dearth:

• Thou Shalt Have Little Faith
• Thou Shalt Have No Enthusiasm
• Thou Shalt Make the Quick Buck

Have you ever seen a zombie startup that is running on denial, manic positivism and leaping from the last big thing to the next big thing? Uh, huh, you sure have and so have I. It's hard to write off your dream, but sometimes you just have to move on.

Remember these Three Rules for Success

I liked these a lot, not because I don't "know" it already, but because it's good to be reminded of important ideals in a new way:

• Thou Shalt Pick Thy Partners with Wanton Abandon
• Thou Shalt Give Nothing Back
• Thou Shalt Seek Easy Street

Now these, these are good.

When you're decideing on people to hire or companies to partner up with, take a deep breath, You've got to live with those people for a long time. Read our A Managers Hire A People article - it distills down 40 years of hiring experience in high tech.

And when things are going well you need to help someone else prime the pump. Take on an intern, pick an office charity, free your people up to do service work.

Finally, if what you're doing seems easy, well, you're probably about to step into an open manhole cover. Time to do some risk management!