> If the solution can't be differentiated from its competitors, beware.
This is critical and not straightforward to evaluate. Complexity is a (if somewhat bad) proxy for differentiation, in the sense that if you can build it in a weekend, so does your competitor - and maybe he's got the mythical 10x engineer who'll ship it faster.
More than anything, experienced business and marketing folks were always the differentiator in my experience.
The ability to make new and or leverage existing connections to open doors for the business mattered far more to success than “how complex” or “is this different.” I’ve seen literal $BigName clones with lesser quality systems make millions because the owner had another business and went to work on his Rolodex to get us in the door and start making money.
This is critical and not straightforward to evaluate. Complexity is a (if somewhat bad) proxy for differentiation, in the sense that if you can build it in a weekend, so does your competitor - and maybe he's got the mythical 10x engineer who'll ship it faster.