Steve blank's blog is a virtual treasure trove of these insights. www.steveblank.com

Eric Reis takes Blank's CD model and extends it into actual product development...where the discussion is much less "Why?" and more "How?" www.startuplessonslearned.blogspot.com

You can also get Steve's book on Cafe Press and Amazon. (can't get it at B&N or Borders) http://www.cafepress.com/kandsranch http://bit.ly/1m4R1S

I second the above recommendations. Read these blogs religiously and prepare to have your mind blown.

You can also join the lean startup circle on Google Groups, and watch this Steve Blank video: http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2056

Four Steps To Epiphany (Steve Blank's self-published book) will teach you something new every paragraph. Buy it. The only complaint is that the publishing is cheap, and your highlighter marks will show through the thin paper.

Excellent article. Good summary, good links. I'll be passing that link to people when they come on the HN IRC channel telling us they have a "great idea" that they can't tell us.

"Finally, friends don’t count as respondents. By some quirk in the human psyche we would rather see our friends waste their time and money, rather than to tell them the truth!"

I love my useless friends =)

Your friends hate to see you disillusioned, so they let you perpetuate the self-illusion that what you're proposing in your project will work. You best friends are the ones who disillusion you.

Yeah, I got that. What I meant was that although that makes them useless for my project, I love them for it at the same time.

Ditto.

The policy I have been following for my new start-up is to not proactively tell friends. Instead I'd rather they tell me "omg I hear that's your website!". More of those I get, more it validates my idea and marketing. This works especially well at a uni environment and for my startup which is very super focused on my uni.

I have always instinctually kept my business and personal lives separate. Maybe this is why.

The most important lesson I've learned is there are no "awesome ideas". Every idea is merely a hypothesis that must be proven true or false.