The Importance of Starting (a start-up!)
Are you someone who is on the fence about an idea or taking the plunge into the startup world? As Michael Seibel has previously highlighted lots of us mull over these thoughts:
Many startups are unsuccessful! 💔
There are other, seemingly easier, well-paid jobs out there! 🤑
Larger companies offer us opportunities to work on bigger problems! 🛸
I think all of these thoughts boil down to risk. It seems like there is just a lot of perceived risk involved with starting a business. Of course there is, but should this stop us from even trying? Absolutely not. Sooo…
Just do it!
Why should risks matter? We should challenge ourselves more to face uncertainty and risk head on. If you are wondering what it would be like, why not go out and start doing some primary research? Build something that fixes a problem. Find out the pain points your friends and family face in their everyday lives. These are all great and fun ways of getting a taste for starting a business. Things don’t happen overnight, but they certainly don’t happen if you only sit around and think about them. Grab a bunch of mates and just brainstorm, bounce ideas off of one another — no matter how silly!🧐
Learn by doing.
The great thing about starting is that once you have you can take a look at the hard evidence. Whilst there is no formula for success, there is one solid method for getting closer to it — iterating and improving. Without starting or building something basic this isn’t possible.
We don’t need to be perfectionists with our early products. Chances are that a lot of primary customer feedback will take your original idea and flip it on its head. The important thing I am trying to stress here is that an idea will only remain an idea if you aren’t proactive about it. There are some great insights here for succeeding later down the line.
New year, new you?
So why not set yourself the task next year of building something. Getting someone interested in your idea. If you can’t commit financially to it full-time, start it as a side project. Who knows where a great side project could take you? I know that this it is one of my main goals for next year!
With the Christmas period right around the corner I’m sure that there are many of us who will have conversations with family or friends about new ideas and solutions to everyday problems we have faced in the last year. Many of these ideas will simply be left here, as a simple afterthought to a conversation had over mulled wine or a cup of tea. Perhaps some of us will even come to realise in 10 years time that we had thought of the next Airbnb over that Christmas Day family argument about where the next holiday will be!
Go and fill up your start-up stocking with novel ideas this Christmas! I’ll be sharing mine on Twitter here @alexisjacoblong
🎄🚀
