Why Good Ideas Kill Most Startups

Business Plan Idea - Entrepreneurship - Founder - Startup - Reagan Pollack

Why Good Ideas Kill Most Startups

STARTUP SECRET #1

YOU DON’T NEED A “GOOD” IDEA

 

While everyone’s out there hunting for the next Uber®, Airbnb®, Google® or Alibaba®, the real entrepreneurs are busy testing new concepts instead of dreaming, writing business plans, and overthinking the crap out of everything.

Entrepreneur:

Average Idea + Massive Action x Initial Results/Adjustments = Progress

Wantrepreneur:

“Big” Idea + Zero to Little Action X Excuses/Time = Nothing Burger

Stop waiting for the perfect idea to hit you like some entrepreneurial Cupid arrow. Bad ideas can become incredibly successful ideas with testing and effort. Great ideas can stay great on paper and in conversation and never see the light of day.

The choice is yours. Take time this weekend to stop day dreaming about your big idea some day, and instead take 1 action towards actually seeing if it has legs.

If you’re looking to start your own restaurant, go scout locations and count how many potential patrons walk by in one hour. That might tell you about the existing walk-in value of that retail location versus another one. Log your results.

If you’re hoping to build an app one day stop dreaming about building it and actually go to a meet up for a coffee shop and buy a coder there a cup of coffee and ask them what they’re currently working on and see if they might be interested in talking about the project you’re hoping to build some day.

If you’re looking to run a real estate agency some day, stop envying others and their commission checks but go invite a realtor for lunch and asked them real questions about how they got started and built their client base.

A well executed, average idea is more powerful than a mediocre one that’s poorly executed.