Opportunity-Founder Fit
How to do a short self-assessment and focus your opportunity search
Everyone can be successful at something. Your best chances are at the intersection of things that (1) you are good at, (2) you are interested about, and (3) people really need. Identify your strengths and interests, and you can find the best space to work on.
Action steps
- Talent and resources. Identify your best strengths.
- Ambition. In the ideal world what would you achieve in the next 3-7 year?
- Ready? Define the area, where you can be most successful.
Talent
Projects. What were your most interesting projects so far? Have you led a project all the way to doing something useful for at least one customer? If you earned some money, even better.
Professional experience. What you can do well? What you can do better than most people around you? Do you have experience in several industries? Was you a team member of some great effort?
Sales skills. Do people believe in your vision for the future? Can you convince other people to use something? Can you assemble and motivate a team? Have you sold anything before?
Personal skills. Are you productive? Fast learner? Resourceful? Full of energy?
Speed. How fast can you go from an idea to one happy customer? What’s your record?
Resources
Team. Who is on your team? Whom can you bring it once the idea is validated and you are ready to start building a company? Whom can you bring in as an advisor?
Money. How much of your savings can you put into a project? How much can you get from friends and family?
What is your “runway”? In other words, how long can you survive without any revenue? Running a company with limited resources is like building an airplane as you jump from the rock. The height of the rock is your initial capital. The falling speed is how much money you spend.
Time. How much personal time can you put in your venture? Do you have other current and future commitments?
Connections. Who do you know? How many people are paying attention to what you are doing? Are there influential and smart people who would love to help you?
Do you have loyal customers from previous projects who can buy your new products? An access to procurement department of big enterprise customer? Any advantages for selling to government? Any other friendly sales channels?
Technology. Can you reuse any programming code, equipment, or invention from your previous work?
Real estate. Do you have access to any buildings or spaces to use for your projects?
Environment. Every city is a center of something. What advantages can you get from your location? What industries are especially strong? Is there something cheap in your city that is more expensive elsewhere?
Ambition
What you really want to do. For a moment, ignore the fear of failure, other commitments and the lack of resources. Imagine an ideal world where everything works out for you.
What would you do if you knew you could not fail?
The answer to this question is your real passion and interest.
Business areas you like. When you grow on a farm all you can dream of is to become a great farmer. People tend to choose between option they know well. Your business imagination is limited to industries you’ve touched in your life. The more fields you are familiar with, the more choices you have. Be broad, learn about lesser know business areas.
Many people think of opening a new restaurant. They know many and have ideas how to make it different. Very few people are thinking of new type of nuclear plant, because they never saw one.
Seriously, go visit a nuclear plant.
You know a few famous entrepreneurs like Richard Branson or Steve Jobs. There are several entrepreneurs among your friends. This is extremely limiting list of role models! Most likely, you and your interests are different from all of them. Find and study success stories where you feel a strong emotional connection with.
Success stories you know are ingredients for your choices.
Learn from leaders in your field. First, identify them. Who are most famous restaurateurs? Who is most successful creator of private schools? Who is running fastest growing web design studio? Once you know the names, search for their video interviews and biographies. Charlie Rose Show, Pando Monthly, Stanford eCorner and Mixergy are particularly great for founder interviews.
If you never saw a video interview with one of global leaders in your field, do it today.
Entrepreneur types. Your motivation defines what opportunities fit you best.
- Change-driven. Find a small change that you can make in 3-6 months. Do not spend time on getting more resources or starting an under-resourced long effort. Once you’ve changed something small, everyone will support you to grow from initial success.
- Profit-driven. Search for unsatisfied demand. Grow it as a skill. You should see hundreds of small opportunities. Test many of them. Is the demand is strong enough? Are there any good solutions? Can you hack a barebone solution in a few weeks? Study other “quick money” success stories.
- Learning-driven. Go for short-term projects. Look how you can apply your strengths in the fields of your interest. Control risks and limit losses. Consulting projects can be a good start here.
- Vision-driven. Many people start with a very detailed picture of their future product. Now they just want to make it happen. Vision-driven entrepreneurs fail most often, so consider to reframe yourself into some other category. If you are just starting, aim for smaller, safer project first and get more experience. If you are passionate about your customers, be ready to solve their problem whatever solution it takes. If you just like an entrepreneurial lifestyle, look for profit-centric ventures.
Think big, start small. You can aim for a huge goal from day one without experience and resources. And likely, fail. Or you can be very modest and say that money is not your primary focus. And fail to keep team motivated and have enough financial support to keep thing going. Generally, it is a good idea to aim for middle ground. Typical revenue for a (successful) first-time entrepreneurial project is around 5-10 average monthly salaries per month. Time to first revenue should be between few hours and 3-6 months.
Start with fast and moderate success. You will have more resources, experience, reputation, connections to pursue your dream after your first small victory. And most of life is still in front of you.
Let’s say you barely can swim across the pool. You stand near a river and clearly see the other side. You feel confidence. Screw that, you can swim to the other side! Let’s do it! Your friends swim back and forth with ease. You start swimming across the river and half-way there you are done. You sunk.
Train in the pool first.
Not ready
Look at the results of this quick self-assessment. There are no hard rules. If you believe in yourself, go and start a company. If you don’t feel ready to start, there are many ways to improve in a “safe mode”:
- Save money, move to an industry hub, make friends with great people. Work in the same industry as your future company will work in. Look into working at some other startup in your field.
- Learn about market. Interview experts and customers, search for pain points, know key statistics. Study success stories in your field. Keep notes, write a blog.
- Do a pre-startup project. Something entrepreneurial in nature and short in time. In fact, we have the dedicated chapter for pre-startup projects.
Ready
If you feel ready to start your entrepreneurship career, use this self-assessment to focus your opportunity search.
- Broadly define the business areas of your interest. What areas are you most passionate about? Where do you have an advantage? Start studying success stories in these fields.
- Decide whether you are looking for profit-centric, change-centric or learning-centric project.
- Balance your talent and resources with the expectations for your future project. If you are new to the game, start with something relatively safe and short-term. You can always grow from that.
Now you are ready for the next chapter: The search for business opportunities.
This article is a part of Earlydays, an open guide for first-time entrepreneurs.
Written by Yury Lifshits — yury@yury.name — @yurylifshits
