Entrepreneurship is not about ideas- It’s an execution game..!!!
How many times have you thought about an idea but dropped it thinking it’s useless? How long have you waited to get that one big idea to start a company? How many times have you felt that you have a great idea but don’t have enough fund to start a company? Many of us would have been in this situation and would have wasted most of our time thinking and doing nothing.
Quite a lot of us have misconceptions that only a great idea and good financial backup will make you a successful entrepreneur. Well when we look at the facts, most of the entrepreneurs emerged successful not because of their ideas or the financial back up but because of the way they executed their ideas. Every solution to a problem is an idea. The problems are endless and so are the ideas. Waiting for that best idea is going to take you forever. And by the time you figure out what is best someone would have already executed it.
A lot of times we have a feeling or a fear that someone might steal our idea. But the reality is that we are not afraid of our idea getting stolen but rather afraid of someone executing our ideas faster, cheaper and more efficiently. Well a few of us get so obsessed with our idea that we don’t give ears to any feedback or criticism that we receive. This reminds me of what Gary Vaynerchuk had mentioned in one of his shows “Ideas are shit — Execution is the game”.
Even a simple mediocre idea with an excellent execution will make all the difference. We spend most of our time making the idea better that’s very trivial compared to the time we spend on executing the idea which is the most vital thing. These days we have got a lot of opportunities and funding options like accelerators, incubators, crowdfunding platforms etc. that has eliminated the need to worry about raising funds for your company. All you need is just an idea or a product that creates value to the end users and you have many out there who would come forward to support you.
Want to be your own boss? Well it’s not that easy but not something that can’t be achieved. All you have to do is Be Confident, Overcome your apprehensions and JUST GO AHEAD AND DO IT..!! How you do it is all that matters at the end.
How do we execute?
Now the next immediate question will be, “I have an idea and how do I execute it efficiently?”. Well, let me walk you through some of the things that I learnt recently.
What do I execute? The answer to this is very simple, Just build what people want or what creates value to them.
How do I figure out what people want? Well, there are endless platforms to figure this out. Let us take the simple case of developing an app, the best and the easiest way to find out what people need is by reading the reviews and the feedback given by the users to the existing apps. Social Media is also a great way to study and understand what is that thing that people need.
How do I raise money? When we think about rising money the immediate reflex action will either be to use the hard earned money from friends and families or to raise money through equity capital. But the best and less risky way to raise capital is through the potential customers(Pre-Order). The example of “Polygons — The flat 4 in 1 measuring spoon” that raised capital by getting on to KickStarter just by using the prototype is a classic example.
How do I make the product that best fits the customers expectation in a short time? The answer is MVP (Minimum Viable Product).
“The minimum viable product is that version of a new product which allows a team to collect the maximum amount of validated learning about customers with the least effort.” by Eric Ries
Not everyone can do the execution right at the first go. People do make mistakes and what we learn from the mistakes is what that matters. Giving a minimum viable product to the potential customers will give you enough time to not only develop the idea further but also helps you to understand the mistakes in the product and the improvements that can be made. It is really interesting to see how companies like Dropbox and Buffer first came up with MVP and then successfully launched their final product.
So what should you do now?
Just Go Ahead and Do it. Remember “Entrepreneurship is not about having the best idea, its about how to efficiently execute an idea.”
Well, Entrepreneurship is indeed an execution game.
