Everyone has thought about starting their own company at some point. Maybe you want to escape the rat race; to pursue a dream or passion; or just to push yourself into something new and challenging. However, for most people it is much easier to daydream about it than actually do it.
I have just gone through process (again!) of launching a new company, and having just got it off the ground last week and secured a first customer, I now have a moment or two to reflect on the process of getting a company from idea to execution.
Its never an easy journey at the early stages, as you should constantly question everything, reiterate, pivot, and just keep pushing through all the doubts and worries that spring up. At the end of months of work, I still have absolutely no idea if my idea will succeed, or if it will sink like a stone. But at least I have prepared the ground by being able to put a yes next to each of the key questions below.
As soon as you’ve been struck by your killer idea, you need to get thinking about these:
• Are you addressing a big enough problem which you understand?
• Does your solution make a big enough difference to drive customer adoption?
• Do you have a viable sales and marketing model?
• Do you have a realistic product development and implementation plan?
• Will you make money?
• Do you have (or can you find) the right team?
If you can’t answer yes to these, then figure out why not and what you need to do to change that.
More to come very soon.