I'd like to start a startup. Where do I start?
Excellent question. I'd say start with asking yourself why. Why'd you like to start a startup? Be very, very honest to yourself. Search deeply in your soul.
You may find many answers. You may have been fantasizing about starting a startup – like, being an entrepreneur is cool, or starting a company sounds trendy, or being in control of your destiny seems awesome. However, if your true, honest answer is anything more than "I care about solving this problem", I'd recommend you not start a startup. At least for now. Because you're not ready. Of course, it's your call to fool yourself into it, but you will quickly find that all what you have been fantasizing about being a startup founder are just fantasies.
The only motivation behind starting a startup should be the problem you want to solve. If you care about the problem enough – so much enough that the only way to solve it is to start a startup, then you should do it.
If you care more about the process of starting a startup itself than about the problem, then you should not do it.
You may wonder: Who the heck you are to tell me about this? Well, I am nobody. I tried starting a startup, twice, and both failed. And I made exactly the same mistake when I started.
Excellent question. I'd say start with asking yourself why. Why'd you like to start a startup? Be very, very honest to yourself. Search deeply in your soul.
You may find many answers. You may have been fantasizing about starting a startup – like, being an entrepreneur is cool, or starting a company sounds trendy, or being in control of your destiny seems awesome. However, if your true, honest answer is anything more than "I care about solving this problem", I'd recommend you not start a startup. At least for now. Because you're not ready. Of course, it's your call to fool yourself into it, but you will quickly find that all what you have been fantasizing about being a startup founder are just fantasies.
The only motivation behind starting a startup should be the problem you want to solve. If you care about the problem enough – so much enough that the only way to solve it is to start a startup, then you should do it.
If you care more about the process of starting a startup itself than about the problem, then you should not do it.
You may wonder: Who the heck you are to tell me about this? Well, I am nobody. I tried starting a startup, twice, and both failed. And I made exactly the same mistake when I started.
How do I get startup ideas?
Paul Graham (Y-Combinator founder) wrote an excellent piece about this. The first principle is: "The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself." Below you'll find really good quotes from Paul's article.
Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has.
Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them.
At YC we call these "made-up" or "sitcom" startup ideas. Imagine one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup. The writers would have to invent something for it to do. But coming up with good startup ideas is hard. It's not something you can do for the asking. So (unless they got amazingly lucky) the writers would come up with an idea that sounded plausible, but was actually bad.
For example, a social network for pet owners. It doesn't sound obviously mistaken. Millions of people have pets. Often they care a lot about their pets and spend a lot of money on them. Surely many of these people would like a site where they could talk to other pet owners. Not all of them perhaps, but if just 2 or 3 percent were regular visitors, you could have millions of users. You could serve them targeted offers, and maybe charge for premium features.
The danger of an idea like this is that when you run it by your friends with pets, they don't say "I would never use this." They say "Yeah, maybe I could see using something like that." Even when the startup launches, it will sound plausible to a lot of people. They don't want to use it themselves, at least not right now, but they could imagine other people wanting it. Sum that reaction across the entire population, and you have zero users.
When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they're making—not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. Usually this initial group of users is small, for the simple reason that if there were something that large numbers of people urgently needed and that could be built with the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would probably already exist. Which means you have to compromise on one dimension: you can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter. Not all ideas of that type are good startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas are of that type.
How do you tell whether there's a path out of an idea? How do you tell whether something is the germ of a giant company, or just a niche product? Often you can't.
Just as trying to think up startup ideas tends to produce bad ones, working on things that could be dismissed as "toys" often produces good ones. When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important. It's cool; users love it; it just doesn't matter. But if you're living in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may matter more than outsiders think.
Because a good idea should seem obvious, when you have one you'll tend to feel that you're late. Don't let that deter you. Worrying that you're late is one of the signs of a good idea. Ten minutes of searching the web will usually settle the question. Even if you find someone else working on the same thing, you're probably not too late. It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors—so rare that you can almost discount the possibility.
Paul Graham (Y-Combinator founder) wrote an excellent piece about this. The first principle is: "The way to get startup ideas is not to try to think of startup ideas. It's to look for problems, preferably problems you have yourself." Below you'll find really good quotes from Paul's article.
Why is it so important to work on a problem you have? Among other things, it ensures the problem really exists. It sounds obvious to say you should only work on problems that exist. And yet by far the most common mistake startups make is to solve problems no one has.
Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them.
At YC we call these "made-up" or "sitcom" startup ideas. Imagine one of the characters on a TV show was starting a startup. The writers would have to invent something for it to do. But coming up with good startup ideas is hard. It's not something you can do for the asking. So (unless they got amazingly lucky) the writers would come up with an idea that sounded plausible, but was actually bad.
For example, a social network for pet owners. It doesn't sound obviously mistaken. Millions of people have pets. Often they care a lot about their pets and spend a lot of money on them. Surely many of these people would like a site where they could talk to other pet owners. Not all of them perhaps, but if just 2 or 3 percent were regular visitors, you could have millions of users. You could serve them targeted offers, and maybe charge for premium features.
The danger of an idea like this is that when you run it by your friends with pets, they don't say "I would never use this." They say "Yeah, maybe I could see using something like that." Even when the startup launches, it will sound plausible to a lot of people. They don't want to use it themselves, at least not right now, but they could imagine other people wanting it. Sum that reaction across the entire population, and you have zero users.
When a startup launches, there have to be at least some users who really need what they're making—not just people who could see themselves using it one day, but who want it urgently. Usually this initial group of users is small, for the simple reason that if there were something that large numbers of people urgently needed and that could be built with the amount of effort a startup usually puts into a version one, it would probably already exist. Which means you have to compromise on one dimension: you can either build something a large number of people want a small amount, or something a small number of people want a large amount. Choose the latter. Not all ideas of that type are good startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas are of that type.
How do you tell whether there's a path out of an idea? How do you tell whether something is the germ of a giant company, or just a niche product? Often you can't.
Just as trying to think up startup ideas tends to produce bad ones, working on things that could be dismissed as "toys" often produces good ones. When something is described as a toy, that means it has everything an idea needs except being important. It's cool; users love it; it just doesn't matter. But if you're living in the future and you build something cool that users love, it may matter more than outsiders think.
Because a good idea should seem obvious, when you have one you'll tend to feel that you're late. Don't let that deter you. Worrying that you're late is one of the signs of a good idea. Ten minutes of searching the web will usually settle the question. Even if you find someone else working on the same thing, you're probably not too late. It's exceptionally rare for startups to be killed by competitors—so rare that you can almost discount the possibility.
What was the biggest challenge you had?
The biggest challenge in any early stage startup, I believe, is finding the product-market fit. Building a product is not that hard. Building a product that people want is really, really hard. There are countless factors that can make or kill a startup, but whether there is a product-market fit is usually the most critical one.
The biggest challenge in any early stage startup, I believe, is finding the product-market fit. Building a product is not that hard. Building a product that people want is really, really hard. There are countless factors that can make or kill a startup, but whether there is a product-market fit is usually the most critical one.
Can I part-time work on my startup, and shift to full-time when I get funding?
This is a commonplace fantasy of wannabe startup founders. I don't want to quit my high paid job now. I want to spend some nights and weekends building something first. Then I will seek for seed funding and once it is "secure" to quit, I will be a full-time entrepreneur.
The answer is no. First, no one will fund a part-time team. Don't even think about the possibility. Among all the investors I talked to, the first question about the startup team is whether everyone (or at least all the founders) is full-time. Second, startup is extremely hard, and it will ask for the highest level of commitment. So, it's impossible to build startup with nights and weekends.
This is a commonplace fantasy of wannabe startup founders. I don't want to quit my high paid job now. I want to spend some nights and weekends building something first. Then I will seek for seed funding and once it is "secure" to quit, I will be a full-time entrepreneur.
The answer is no. First, no one will fund a part-time team. Don't even think about the possibility. Among all the investors I talked to, the first question about the startup team is whether everyone (or at least all the founders) is full-time. Second, startup is extremely hard, and it will ask for the highest level of commitment. So, it's impossible to build startup with nights and weekends.
I have a brilliant idea. How do I tell others without worrying about they stealing it?
Congratulations if (you think) you have a brilliant idea. I understand that you will inevitably have to discuss it with others. Pitch it to an investor. Ask for opinions or advice from a respected colleague. Promote it to cofounders or employees. Eventually, you won't be able to keep it to yourself.
Then you will worry, won't you? It's such a brilliant idea that's potentially worth billions of dollars. Certainly if I tell others, they steal it. How do I deal with it?
Here is a simple suggestion. Do not worry about it. There are four reasons.
First, you think the idea is brilliant only because it is your baby and it's the human nature to overprotect our offsprings. Try to switch your role. Imagine a friend tells you about his brilliant idea. What will you do? Are you gonna say "sounds like a great idea" and then forget about it pretty soon, or are you gonna steal it, roll up your sleeves, and start to work on it faster than he does? I'd bet $100 for the former. If you respond to a brilliant idea this way, others will most likely do the same. So, don't worry. People are too busy with their own businesses, and the chance they steal your brilliant idea is extremely, extremely low.
Second, it may sound counterintuitive but most successful companies started with seemingly bad ideas. (Hello, Airbnb!) If your idea is truly brilliant, it's very likely that someone has already done it. If your idea is "bad", then no one will even care stealing it.
Third, building a real business is way more complex than a brilliant idea. Having an idea is only a starting point. Don't get me worry. "Idea is worth nothing. Execution is the key". Sounds like a cliché, but I don't agree with it 100%. Having a good idea is also very crucial. A bad idea usually leads to nowhere. That said, execution is still the key. If you look closely, many companies rooted on the same or very similar idea, but almost no companies are exactly the same. That is because the different teams executed on the idea in different ways. Only a very few of them will succeed and most will fail.
Lastly, you can't hide from competitors forever. Sooner or later, you will launch publicly. And if you are lucky to have rapid growth early on, you will become the target for competitors to catch up. Eventually, you need something to guard yourself against competitors. Maybe it's the community you have built. Maybe it's the proprietary technology you invented. Maybe it's the tiny operation details that set you apart from the rest. It can be anything but the idea itself. If someone steals your idea and competes you out, then instead of worry that others may steal your idea, I think you have a bigger problem to concern about.
Congratulations if (you think) you have a brilliant idea. I understand that you will inevitably have to discuss it with others. Pitch it to an investor. Ask for opinions or advice from a respected colleague. Promote it to cofounders or employees. Eventually, you won't be able to keep it to yourself.
Then you will worry, won't you? It's such a brilliant idea that's potentially worth billions of dollars. Certainly if I tell others, they steal it. How do I deal with it?
Here is a simple suggestion. Do not worry about it. There are four reasons.
First, you think the idea is brilliant only because it is your baby and it's the human nature to overprotect our offsprings. Try to switch your role. Imagine a friend tells you about his brilliant idea. What will you do? Are you gonna say "sounds like a great idea" and then forget about it pretty soon, or are you gonna steal it, roll up your sleeves, and start to work on it faster than he does? I'd bet $100 for the former. If you respond to a brilliant idea this way, others will most likely do the same. So, don't worry. People are too busy with their own businesses, and the chance they steal your brilliant idea is extremely, extremely low.
Second, it may sound counterintuitive but most successful companies started with seemingly bad ideas. (Hello, Airbnb!) If your idea is truly brilliant, it's very likely that someone has already done it. If your idea is "bad", then no one will even care stealing it.
Third, building a real business is way more complex than a brilliant idea. Having an idea is only a starting point. Don't get me worry. "Idea is worth nothing. Execution is the key". Sounds like a cliché, but I don't agree with it 100%. Having a good idea is also very crucial. A bad idea usually leads to nowhere. That said, execution is still the key. If you look closely, many companies rooted on the same or very similar idea, but almost no companies are exactly the same. That is because the different teams executed on the idea in different ways. Only a very few of them will succeed and most will fail.
Lastly, you can't hide from competitors forever. Sooner or later, you will launch publicly. And if you are lucky to have rapid growth early on, you will become the target for competitors to catch up. Eventually, you need something to guard yourself against competitors. Maybe it's the community you have built. Maybe it's the proprietary technology you invented. Maybe it's the tiny operation details that set you apart from the rest. It can be anything but the idea itself. If someone steals your idea and competes you out, then instead of worry that others may steal your idea, I think you have a bigger problem to concern about.
