Startup Grind Buffalo hosted Niall Wallace (Infonaut) last night, and Niall had some great advice for entrepreneurs relating to South Park's underwear gnomes.
In the episode of South Park mysterious gnomes steal underwear from all the characters. When the South Park boys question the gnomes motives the gnomes reply "Phase 1- Steal underwear Phase 3- Profit".
The gnomes had no phase 2, they just knew they had an idea (steal underwear) and wanted to make money.
Niall's advice for startups is to make sure you have a phase 2 right away, even if you have to persevere through a lot of failure and hard work. Using the techniques from Lean Startup are a great way to quickly go from phase 1 to phase 3!
All startup's start with an idea (phase 1), and they all want to make money (step 3), but the most important thing for startups is figuring out how to connect the two phases.