Every day I read more and more stories abut why someone’s start-up failed. Most of these reasons sounds like humblebrags peppered with some really juicy words like “churn” and “runway.” Look, I’m a fan of trying new things. I’m a fan of trying, period. I’m a fan of being daring, bold, and bananas but I am even more a fan of: 1) ideas that have actual business models behind them 2) real research & 3) early adoption of an actual, profit-tested business person.

A good idea needs a great business model; a great ideal needs a world-changing business model, a truly shitty, egregious idea can even sort of get off the ground with a decent business model (i.e., Little Ceasars pizza). As of late I’ve heard more chatter about designer-driven businesses & engineer-driving companies being totally mystified, or even miffed, as to what triggered their stunning failures. Like they were owed success.

So let me try to suggest this: Designer-driven businesses do not fail because the don’t have developers; developer-driven businesses do not fail because they don’t have designers, both models tend to fail because there is no one creating THE business. And it’s the business that fails.

“The business” is that literal machine that get ideas get circulating in the marketplace, on all levels. The business is how ideas and technology are proven valuable, viable, and profitable. Because it’s the business that gets your brilliant branding and brilliant code into the hands of people and robots who are testing it. Just “releasing it,” is like putting a letter in the mailbox with no address and no stamp, all your beautiful work cozily nestled inside an envelope. The business asks: Where the fuck is this beautiful thing supposed to go and how the fuck is it supposed to get there? That question, is what business-people answer.

The best designers/engineers/founders I know have no idea how to deploy a product into a marketplace, position it, build metrics into it to measure and benchmark it (and decide to benchmark it against what?), process, project, accept revenue, gather feedback from humans and tracking services, get your website to show up on Google, decide and then incentivize the right set of user-behaviors that are the most strategic for the ongoing development of the business, AND…. then derive from all this concurrent feedback coming in from marketing, user-testing, log files, and peers what is genuinely THE most valuable, viable, profitable part of all of your efforts that will create genuine, long-lasting value in the eyes of the customer and then plot the path to getting everyone there- spoiler alert- ahead of everyone else with a few pennies left to pivot, ya know, just in case.

Business people, as I see it, ask the kind of painful, strategic questions your Mom asked. “Where is this project of yours going?” “WHY are you doing this?” No really, why?” “What do you expect to get from this?” “Is that all you plan to do with that?” “How will that help you five years from now?” “I love your enthusiasm but how will this make money and who should care about it?” “Do people pay for that these days?” And when you claim you failed because you, “ didn’t anticipate all the demand” —businesspeople will call you on your humblebrag-soaked, navel-gazing bullshit. Out of love.

Secondly, the last hackathon I attended had an abundance of ideas, all of which already existed in a much better format so please, please, stop Googling and go to a library. Here is one example where a library could have helped a hackathon-er just by walking in to it: they wanted to create an app that allowed them to locate a book in a library. Now, I’m not a start-up titan but I do know that this “app” exists already. It’s called the Dewey Decimal system.

I get worried when i regularly hear really lovely, enthusiastic startuppers express new ideas for which there are current solutions that are STILL BETTER than any competing idea, even though it’s not in app-form. There is no user motivation to switch to an app when a solution already exists is so much better. Ergo: The reason that the Dewey Decimal system has persisted as a fine solution to “helping someone locate books in a library” is not because we’ve been so busy learning to make coffee one painfully, slow-poured, mealy, acidic, beige-roasted cup at a time that we forgot how to find a book in the interminably-long waiting period between pour-overs, it’s because no other system has been able to prove it is more valuable than the flexible, approachable, relate-able, reliable, scalable, easy-to-understand Dewey Decimal System.

Please go to a library and talk to a real librarian right when you have an idea, pre-tweeting. They have access to databases (like Gale) that are far beyond googling. My friend who works in banking has access to databases that can tell you hair-raising stats about company revenue no amount of googling ever will. Librarians are fountains of knowledge but also deeply cunning, ruthlessly-efficient researchers. They probably know more than the start-uppper guy one Macbook over with all the PowerPoint slides on competitive research that look like a schematic from NASA. So ask an actual librarian and not him. However, do be sure to compliment his Barbour coat -even if the only people who need waxed clothing in a global drought are whale poachers.

Example 2 of 982734 reasons why a start-up needs a business-person with a very low tolerance for tomfoolery: Another hackathon-er wanted to create an app that would allow one to set a shorter time for taking showers out of respect for said drought. Ok, again, there is already an existing solution that actually is meeting or exceeding current need and willingness to spend money (market utility). It’s called a timer and it’s free; it’s also most likely on your phone right now. Surprise!

As of yet, there is no app for a function called, “just take a second and THINK about it before you start asking for money.”

Lastly, your Mom. Your Mom, if she was like my Mom, and I hope she was, probably didn’t dilly-dally with ideas while her money ran out; she excelled at differentiation on the fly, pivot-schmivot. Consider this: She probably had a strong “bias towards action,” though most mothers i know call it, “I’ll happily sleep when I’m dead as long as my kids don’t turn out to be murderers or republicans.” She probably acted on hard-data and gut instinct. She probably held a fair amount of conflicting ideas simultaneously and synthesized them into decision points before you were off the bottle.

She probably had to scan the horizon that was your life and execute. She didn’t sit back and think about how to brand you or test you- she made you happen in real time. For better or worse, you were marched forward in time, capacity was piled on you, experience, learning, and and challenges were heaped on you, when you looked like you might be really good at piano she forced it on you wholesale to see if in fact you were any good. She was trying to find your differentiators and also build up your resilience to shock and impact (like a good business).

So when you start that next start-up, start looking for your start-up parent right away. The person that will listen to you cry and lament and ask, “Feel better? Now what do you need to change so this doesn’t happen again?” The person that will both encourage you AND light a fire under your ass. The person who knows you are capable of great things but can see you gaily resting in your illusions of mastery; go search for the parent that pops that bubble in service to your own greatness- in short- get someone from business on board.

It’s for your own good. Always for your own good.