An Idea or a Wish? What Do You Have? 2020

What do you need to succeed as a startup or a business?

The answer is simple and straightforward.

You should make the right decisions at the right moments, but the problem is, you won't know whether your choices are right or wrong until you put them to work and see the results.

But there is one thing you can do, which is avoiding the mistakes entrepreneurs usually make at the critical junctures of building a startup—ideation, validation, building an MVP, and getting your customers.

That's what we are going to address in this and the following emails, because when you know the mistakes you should avoid, you can probably be on the right track.

Let's start with the mistakes of the ideation stage.

Picking the right idea for your startup is challenging and critical for your success. A right product idea can put you on the fast track to success, while a wrong idea can set you back, costing you time, effort, and money.

People choose their startup idea in different ways. That's where a lot of entrepreneurs make their first mistake.

It's working for someone else

Often people choose an idea just because it's working for someone else. That's a mistake.

Each one of us is different. Who we are and what we can do differently.

Because something works for someone doesn't mean you can also do it and produce similar results. You could pull it off or even do it better than the other, and it is also possible that you'll fail because you lack what is required to execute the idea.

The other guy is doing it because he has his own reasons and you don't have those reasons. You are doing it because it's working for him or her. And at the sight of the first trouble, you'll bounce from the idea because you don't know how to handle the situation or how the other guy handled the situation.

Because there is a lot more going on inside than what you see from outside.

It's trending

Do you remember how many started a some-kart business when Flipkart became a unicorn?

A lot.

But do you know how many of them survived?

A lot less.

See, following the trends is an excellent way to pick an idea, but that doesn't guarantee success by default because your success depends on whether or not you are good enough to turn that idea into a working business.

Many of the "karts" failed because people didn't have a clue about running an e-commerce business while the Bansals knew what they were doing.

But that's only one side of the problem.

The other side is that people aren't considering the three main criteria for a successful business idea:

Whether or not they have what it takes to make the idea work;

Whether or not there is a market need for the idea; and

Whether they can sell it or not.

Let me explain.

What it takes to make the idea work

The idea is just the beginning.

There is a long journey between coming up with the idea and turning it into a working product or service, and it takes a lot of work. It takes countless hours of disciplined work as an individual and a team, executing a well-crafted plan toward a well-defined goal.

That's what people don't realize. When they come face-to-face with the workload, they feel overwhelmed and lost.

Whether there is a market need or not

This is probably the biggest mistake any entrepreneur can make and still most make.

Your idea isn't worth a penny if it isn't meeting a market need.

It doesn't matter how innovative or exciting the idea is, it should fulfill a market need or solve a market problem.

Whether you can sell it or not

You might have the best idea or product, but if you can't sell it to your target market, which is, if your target market isn't willing to pay for it, none of it matters.

People will be willing to pay for a solution or an idea only if it benefits them somehow and makes their lives better—not for the features or how fantastic the idea is.

People want to get better and quicker results in doing simpler things. If your idea or product is not doing that, you can't sell it. If your product produces better and faster results but is complex to use, you can't sell it and so on.

But in the ideation phase, people don't consider it, and most entrepreneurs start thinking about the sales part after they have invested a lot in building the product or solution only to face the bitter fact that no one is willing to pay for it.

And that's why often ideas are just wishes and nothing more.

For example:

I'll start a restaurant or any offline business or will start consulting, or a service-based business or will build a SAAS product or an app or a website or something else.

These aren't ideas but your wishes, things you want to do. But just because you want to do something, it doesn't mean you can do it or you'll succeed in doing it, or it'll work out well and make you money.

I call it a wish because of the pure nature of those statements.

Let me take the restaurant example and explain it.

I'll start a restaurant.

I call it a wish, not an idea, because it's just a statement. There’s no logic or reason behind the statement, nor does it explain how and why you consider the idea a good one or a workable one.

You could have picked the idea because of the reasons we've discussed so far.

And you probably haven't considered whether there is a market need or not, whether you have the skills to start and manage a restaurant business, or whether people will buy from you or not.

I've seen a lot of restaurants pop up now and then fade away in six months or so, probably because they didn't think it through.

But if you turn the statement into something like this.

I'm going to start a restaurant because people in this area don't have access to x cuisine, have to drive y km for such a restaurant, or are from the y location and love the cuisine. Also, people in the surrounding area with a radius of around 5 km too prefer this cuisine and can be served via delivery platforms.

Or

I'm going to start a restaurant because I've seen people are waiting in front of restaurants x and y, which have limited seating capacity, while their customers spend a long time on the meals. If I provide similar features and facilities, I could convert those who couldn't get a table as my customers.

It is still not perfect enough reason to start a restaurant, but it transforms the wish into an idea because you've thought it through a bit.

It's a good start, and you might even succeed if you execute it right.

Now it's your turn.

What do you have? An idea or a wish?