We have talked before about the Myth of the Great Idea of Ramit Sethi, and Paul Graham talks as well about the fact that the most important thing in a new venture are the entrepreneurs themselves rather than their ideas.
The concept behind all that is the mantra "What matters is execution", and that the original idea always ends up changing, sometimes completely.
I am aware as well of success stories as Google or Facebook, who challenged the existing status quo and became leaders in their fields. But they are only two. I think there are out there thousands of startups with few or no success.
Sometimes I have serious doubts about the viability of pure web based businesses. It is a very competitive field. Is it any easier in real "first world" ventures? Maybe not, I don't know. The business model of having thousands of users and pageviews to make it sustainable and make a living out of it, or the other one of charging the users, freemium ... I have lots of doubts, I'm afraid.
Currently, our process goes like this:
- We have an idea. We think it's genius! we discuss and become enthusiastic.
- We start researching the market to see if there are similar things around. SimpleSpark is a good place to start.
- After some research it becomes clear that we are no pioneers. The idea is always done already. Sometimes the idea has been done exactly as we thought (not only the general concept is similar). Then, we check how successful these startups are. They are implementing our idea (it was ours!!!!!).
- The research has another side effect, as you start to realize the dimensions to the task. Things are always more complicated that we thought. This, as members of the microwave generation, is painful and difficult to accept. I feel discouraged.
- Then we have another idea and the cycle starts again.
The whole cycle usually takes up to two weeks.
Of course, there is fear involved as if you are going to implement something, you really have to believe in it, and finding the right idea seems to be important if you are going to commit yourself to the task of bringing it up to life. I am fully aware that this cannot go on, as otherwise we won't be doing anything and just losing time.
Gut feeling
On the other hand, I must say that the best decisions in life may not come after a full research and analysis of all data available, but following gut instinct instead.
Get some data, let your brain process it in background and it will eventually come up with a "gut feeling". That is how I decided to go to London for the first time 3 years ago, and how now I am starting to work part-time to devote the rest of my time in our startup.
I'll jump into the pool, and think about how cold the water is when it is too late. It won't be that bad, I'm sure.
