Startups: People + Idea + Timing + Reality = WTF happened?!?
First startup: guy with an astonishing insight plus guy with an astonishing checkbook get together with visions of multiple astonishing checkbooks. One drawback is the insight has a limited shelf life of about 18 months. I come in and find that project step 2 is really steps 2 thru 7, with step 5 being find the magic data transform that 'corrects' the 'minor' hardware signal distortion introduced between encoding and decoding. Wavelets! smart guy says. Great, I says, we have a first tier university nearby full of Math/EE/CS genius wannabe students that would really chew through this 'minor' problem for nearly no money! No, let's bring in an "industry expert" they say. Months later I quit with much denario unpaid to me.
They never understood the biggest problem was timing and execution. The incorrect kind of hurry is fatal.
Second startup: called in to help out a friend with their software demo for prospective investors. Later find out they'd spent lots on two other 'friends' that simply disappeared after a month and a half, thus emergency call to me. (Yah, thanks) Much work, time, and repeated demos later, number two decides he can't take the heat with no fuel coming in. A group conference finds number two never put in any money, number one has been funding the whole deal, and - ya'know - nobody wants to fund development of a porn blocker. For some reason, no upstanding citizens or organizations (who are most vocally against porn) want to be materially associated with the subject. They're a'gin it, but don't want it to go away??
Some technologies are nerd-perfect, and fly smack into the brick wall of reality. Make sure your startup idea will fly in the *real* world.