One day you may wake up with an incredible idea that you think it would make you the next Elon Musk or Mark Zuckerberg. One day you may find yourself drawing away from work day-dreaming on that wonderful idea thinking that it is gonna be the next big thing in this century and hoping that it would kick off and give you the work-life balance that you have always yearned for. You may have seen and read many successful startup stories like how Travis Kalanick founded Uber with just a simple idea. Feeling confident, you begin to feel that you can do this too. You have that simple and unique idea in your head too. Thinking about it day and night, you convince yourself that this is the moment – the moment when you could build your own startup and live the life that you have always wanted; the moment when you could change the world; and finally, the moment when you are just one step away from being famous and successful.
Congratulations for having that great idea. But let me tell you the hardest truth, having a great idea does not guarantee any success. It does not work that way. Starting a startup is so much more than just having some ideas. It is not as easy as you perceive and it’s definitely not based on imagination. Elon Musk almost suffered a major breakdown when his companies were on the verge of bankruptcy. God knows what other obstacles he went through to be where he is today.
Like a matchstick, an idea sparks a great creation. But not everyone is willing to ignite it. Execution is the key.
Sure, you may argue that like a matchstick, an idea is an element that sparks a great creation. Everything begins with an idea. What if I told you that everyone has that matchstick too, but not everyone is willing to ignite it. Execution is the key. The match stick won’t ignite if you just sit there thinking that it would. The point is — You have to stop dreaming about success and work for it instead. Success only comes with hard work. So stop being f*cking naive cause I was once naive too. I started Safe Heart last year when I was doing my final year because I wanted to create a better safety app to protect the people I love. I considered my idea to be unique and great and I even won the best final year project award with that. Just like you, my judgment was clouded with the thought of success. Just as I thought I was heading in the right direction, the traction certainly shows otherwise. We gained little to none in traction for months, getting rejected from Y-combinator, and eventually ended up a failure.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that your idea is trashy, your idea is good, but you shouldn’t treat it as everything just like I did. The idea is merely just 1% of the equation, execution is 99%. Here are few lessons I learned:
Validate, validate and validate
There are over 7 billion people in this world. Anyone anywhere can have a similar idea like yours too. While you may think that your flying car idea is a great one. What truly makes your idea stands out is the demand. Do people really need a flying car? Will they buy one? Validating the demand of your product idea is far more important than being just unique. You don’t want to create a business or product that nobody wants, do you? So go out there, start building a minimum viable product(MVP) and sell it to your potential customers. You can even tell your friends and family about your idea. Chances are if they are interested and are willing to buy your product even before you launch, you’re pretty much in a good shape.
Here’s a great article on MVP by Rohit Sharma.
Plan and commit to your plan
A wise man in Piktochart once told me that “failing to plan is planning to fail”. Stop running everything inside your head, but writing them down on a piece of paper instead. Gather your thoughts, turn them into actionable items and start ticking them off one by one. Planning is not just about writing down todos in your to-do list. It is about commitment. Train yourself to focus on tasks and give your very best in completing each task. If you find yourself having trouble to focus or get distracted by other tasks easily just like me, you can take a look at the Pomodoro technique. It helps me to focus better. Start small and aim high.
Building a startup is not and never a shortcut to fame or getting rich
It’s rather the opposite of it. I know most of you are astounded by how many startup founders became incredibly rich. Well, you clearly have no idea what they had gone through. Being a startup founder actually putting you one step closer towards misery. You will be in a constant state of worrying. Those sleepless nights, not having any proper meal in days, weeks or even months, losing your life savings, constantly worrying about not being able to pay for the rental and much more. There’s no fixed monthly salary or wages. Those struggles are real. Are you ready to go through all those struggles? Are you ready to fight for what you believe in?
Ask yourself why
- What motivates you to build your startup?
- What is your passion?
- Why do you want to develop your idea?
- What do you want to achieve from this idea?
These are the golden questions you should ask yourself before building one. If getting rich or fame is the main reason behind this, maybe you should rethink it. Building a startup requires a great amount of hard work and sacrifices, dedication and passion, and don’t expect it to pay off any sooner. It might not. In fact, most early-stage startup founders do not get paid at all and most startups end up as failures within the first 6 months.
Be humble
Think less of yourself and learn to be humble. Don’t let ego consumes you. Nobody likes egomaniacs. An entrepreneur needs a great amount of support, so stay humble so that the people around you want to help you up, not knock you back down.
Your team is what defines your startup
Build a great team with great teamwork. Don’t just hire smart people, hire people who are genuine. Why? Because they’re real, they’re sincere and they’re humble. They genuinely care about your startup just like you do and they will always strive for the best. Before you start building your team, build yourself first. Learn to be a good leader and lose that bossy attitude. Trust your team and don’t ever micromanage. A good leader listens and takes care of everyone in the team. Commit to your team. Motivate them.
Keep learning
You often play multiple roles when building a startup. Your education background doesn’t really matter anymore. Everything starts from zero. You may have a PhD. in computer science where you’re the technical co-founder whose responsibility is to design and build an app from scratch, but tomorrow you might be a marketer or a sales person. You see, your role is not just limited to your profession. Early-stage startups lack monetary and human resources. Oftentimes, you have to be the person your startup needs. You have to learn about marketing or business tactics or whatever that is essential to bring your business forward. To be an entrepreneur, you can never stop learning. So pick up some books, watch some online videos, try to learn at least one new thing every day. Knowledge is the new rich, arm yourself with it.
Never give up
I hate to tell you this, but 90% of startups are guaranteed to fail. Don’t get discouraged, failure is part of success. Embrace it. Learn from your failures.
Don’t worry about failures, worry about the chances you miss when you don’t even try.
—Jack Canfield
Dream it or do it, the choice is yours. Good luck!