In well-funded or established businesses that's entirely right, but for seed-funded and bootstrapped businesses I'm not sure Thiel is right. If you've only got a few months money in the bank you don't get to make mistakes 2 through 5 because mistake 1 is enough to shut down the company. That's one of the reasons why seed funding raises have been going up. When I started my business (which failed due to a single very obvious mistake[1]) a typical seed round was $100k. Now it's upwards of $250k. That extra money gives you room to make more than one bad call.
[1] We spent so long making the product "perfect" we ran out of money before we had any customers.
In well-funded or established businesses that's entirely right, but for seed-funded and bootstrapped businesses I'm not sure Thiel is right. If you've only got a few months money in the bank you don't get to make mistakes 2 through 5 because mistake 1 is enough to shut down the company. That's one of the reasons why seed funding raises have been going up. When I started my business (which failed due to a single very obvious mistake[1]) a typical seed round was $100k. Now it's upwards of $250k. That extra money gives you room to make more than one bad call.
[1] We spent so long making the product "perfect" we ran out of money before we had any customers.