How to choose a business idea for an IT startup
Friends,
Some time ago we launched a beta version of the site - an electronic queue in the cloud. We want to release a series of articles, after reading which, a novice businessman (start-up) will be able to study typical mistakes using the example of our organization, which will allow him to bypass those rakes that we have already stepped on.
')
This is the first article in the series. In it, I will describe my main problems and mistakes that are worth paying attention to, despite their simplicity. If you think you are pretty good at how to start a business from scratch - do not read this article.
At the start, many have a similar situation:
- No business idea
- There are no confident programming skills, layout, design (this item is only for the IT sphere, in other areas it is present, only with a different list of skills)
- There is no start-up capital
Everyone has a moment in which you want to give up everything and open your own business. In spite of the good work now, I had such a desire 3 years ago and still have not disappeared. At that time I was still studying at the university and naively believed that he would be able to give me some practical knowledge and skills, but, alas, apart from system thinking, there is nothing to boast about. And so, just recently, I launched the site of a free electronic queue - Picktime .
In the survey of friends and acquaintances, I collected the following statements:
"I have money, so I can create a successful business at any time."
“Oh yes, open your own business - 5 minutes. Here I’ll finish the project and start right away. ”
“To start today or tomorrow is not important, I’ll be in time. While I sit well, I will not strain. ”
“Change something in your life and start living out of a pattern?” Not today.".
These phrases (and their various formulations), sadly, accounted for 90% of the responses. Perhaps, if you have 5-10 million, then it is quite easy to buy a franchise from some popular company and, with minimal risks, get a pretty good income. If you do not make a mistake. For example, with the choice of a place where the next restaurant SubWay or a network pivnushku open. Only this is not 5 minutes in vain, and it is important to start today. Today, precisely because tomorrow it may no longer be this money, or the franchise will rise in price, or the enthusiasm will die out. The franchise variant is somehow boring. At least because it is all the same work "on uncle", only on a larger and with a keen area of ​​responsibility. What to do to those who want to do something for the soul? The basis of this business is the idea. It is important to note that 90% of success depends on the choice of the idea. In my opinion, the idea should be as interesting as possible.
The main criteria for "interesting" ideas:
-Massiness
-Novelty
- Monetization opportunities
- Something from life. or close to
I will explain each item
Mass. It seems that this point is extremely simple, but, on the example of my friends, I noticed that not everyone understands this requirement correctly. Massively, it means not to your class at school, or “to all the painters,” not to “all the tractor drivers.” No, of course, groups of people also need a good website, themed Wikipedia, perhaps convenient applications on their phone. Do you really think that all 15,000 painters will download your application? How many of them have a phone? Namely, on the OS under which the application is written? Alright, let it be 5 percent. 300 people? No, really? For the sake of such an audience, is it worth spending half a year on a prototype, and then all your life? It seems not. Mass - this is, ideally, one and all. At least - through one. In potential, of course. I hope everyone understands that half of the world's population will not start using your site right away? Yes, you can work with this, but the potentials directly affect the quality of the idea . And, by the way, if suddenly, an investor or an investment fund draws attention to your startup, this criterion will be the first by which your startup will be assessed.
Novzin. Often people do not understand that they subconsciously copy other people's thoughts, ideas, and approaches. No, of course, you need to look at the experience of other companies. Why go on the same rake twice. Russian Kickstarter, localized by Facebook. All these projects are good. In the beginning. After some time, their main competitor, from which the main idea was borrowed, comes to Russia. The target audience begins to choose them, and your creation, slowly, but begins to die. As an example - VK. Yes, perhaps there is a target audience (schoolchildren + 1-3 courses). But, look at the statistics, more and more people are choosing Facebook instead of VK. Even the abundance of advertising does not scare people. Why is this happening? Complex issue. In my opinion, this is because the creator of the “idea” develops it, feeling the trends. You, will often turn around, adopt the main innovations. The result is a localized fake, which only creates the appearance of pleasure from use. For some reason, few people try, but why copy? Find contacts of the creator of the idea and invite him to open a regional division of his company. You will have some degree of freedom of action and choice, and you will not meet your competitors with your foreheads (and if you do, you will immediately take a winning position).
Monetization. Many start-up development textbooks teach a budding businessman not to think about monetization. It often happens that the entire organization's potential and monetization are invisible, at an early stage, kills the project, however, this does not mean that we should not think about ways to make a profit. It is necessary for business to develop something. If you are still reading and, at the same time, you think that after half a year, after the launch, the project (any startup is a project) you can buy Porshe Panamera and an apartment for the ruble - finish reading Habr, it will not help anyway. In general, all this is a lie. Everybody lies (C). It’s necessary to think about monetization, but you shouldn’t dwell on one variant that was originally planned. A startup should be flexible, respectively, and plans should change depending on many factors. Few people change the monetization scheme after starting a startup, but for good reason. It is necessary to try various options, analyze, try others, make a choice, but do not stop analyzing. It is worth to stand without moving half a year and, everything, the train left. The main audience becomes boring, there is an outflow of customers, the decline of the motivation of the team, everything collapses.
Something from life, which is very lacking. Quite often, a successful business is obtained from some problem that the founder encountered, but did not find a ready-made solution. This is how great startups come about. If you chase for money or popularity - the focus is not on that. Not on the issue. The output is often a non-functional product. Time spent, strength, perhaps even money. It's a shame. For example, I took as a basis what annoys me. I do not like to wait and waste time in the void. As a special case of this - turn. We are trying to overcome it.
Summarizing the above, what not to do when creating a startup:
- Do not be afraid
- DO NOT need to pull with the creation of a dream company
- DO NOT need to copy other people's ideas.
- DO NOT blindly follow the plan.
- DO NOT put everything on the product for a very small number of users.
Which is better to try:
- To participate in promotions for startups, it helps a lot. For example, Amazon and Habrahabr have quite attractive programs for start-up businesses.
- Use crowdfunding. It is for this that we are here. If you do not like something in the article, narrative style, website - write, discuss, criticize. It helps a lot, although criticism is not always pleasant.
- Try, and everything will turn out. Only with the mind. We tried, whether it will work out - it's up to you.
The founder of the company Picktime.ru .
ps I hope at least someone will be helpful article.
Those who read up to this place - a bonus, cat.
Some time ago we launched a beta version of the site - an electronic queue in the cloud. We want to release a series of articles, after reading which, a novice businessman (start-up) will be able to study typical mistakes using the example of our organization, which will allow him to bypass those rakes that we have already stepped on.
')
This is the first article in the series. In it, I will describe my main problems and mistakes that are worth paying attention to, despite their simplicity. If you think you are pretty good at how to start a business from scratch - do not read this article.
At the start, many have a similar situation:
- No business idea
- There are no confident programming skills, layout, design (this item is only for the IT sphere, in other areas it is present, only with a different list of skills)
- There is no start-up capital
Everyone has a moment in which you want to give up everything and open your own business. In spite of the good work now, I had such a desire 3 years ago and still have not disappeared. At that time I was still studying at the university and naively believed that he would be able to give me some practical knowledge and skills, but, alas, apart from system thinking, there is nothing to boast about. And so, just recently, I launched the site of a free electronic queue - Picktime .
What is PickTime?
PickTime is an attempt to get rid of annoying queues and stupid phone calls. The current status of the project is Beta. The basic idea is that anyone who wants to reserve a table at a restaurant, make an appointment with a doctor, or go to a hairdresser without interruption from the computer. Enough to go to Picktime , find a place of interest and book a convenient time in a couple of clicks. Restaurants, these appear on the site as simple as possible. It’s enough for the owner to enter and go through a simple (!) Registration. You specify the time of work and the interval - and everything, you are already in search and people can come to you. For the owner of the institution it is important to understand that he must serve the customers who came through PickTime in the first place (at the appointed time). Some of you may be reminded that some time ago, Yandex launched a similar service. However, I want to note that in order for you to be able to sign up via the Internet, you need to perform quite a lot of actions, including signing the contract (and someone may not even have a Legal entity). We have - everything is simple, 5 minutes and everything is ready.
In the survey of friends and acquaintances, I collected the following statements:
"I have money, so I can create a successful business at any time."
“Oh yes, open your own business - 5 minutes. Here I’ll finish the project and start right away. ”
“To start today or tomorrow is not important, I’ll be in time. While I sit well, I will not strain. ”
“Change something in your life and start living out of a pattern?” Not today.".
These phrases (and their various formulations), sadly, accounted for 90% of the responses. Perhaps, if you have 5-10 million, then it is quite easy to buy a franchise from some popular company and, with minimal risks, get a pretty good income. If you do not make a mistake. For example, with the choice of a place where the next restaurant SubWay or a network pivnushku open. Only this is not 5 minutes in vain, and it is important to start today. Today, precisely because tomorrow it may no longer be this money, or the franchise will rise in price, or the enthusiasm will die out. The franchise variant is somehow boring. At least because it is all the same work "on uncle", only on a larger and with a keen area of ​​responsibility. What to do to those who want to do something for the soul? The basis of this business is the idea. It is important to note that 90% of success depends on the choice of the idea. In my opinion, the idea should be as interesting as possible.
The main criteria for "interesting" ideas:
-Massiness
-Novelty
- Monetization opportunities
- Something from life. or close to
I will explain each item
Mass. It seems that this point is extremely simple, but, on the example of my friends, I noticed that not everyone understands this requirement correctly. Massively, it means not to your class at school, or “to all the painters,” not to “all the tractor drivers.” No, of course, groups of people also need a good website, themed Wikipedia, perhaps convenient applications on their phone. Do you really think that all 15,000 painters will download your application? How many of them have a phone? Namely, on the OS under which the application is written? Alright, let it be 5 percent. 300 people? No, really? For the sake of such an audience, is it worth spending half a year on a prototype, and then all your life? It seems not. Mass - this is, ideally, one and all. At least - through one. In potential, of course. I hope everyone understands that half of the world's population will not start using your site right away? Yes, you can work with this, but the potentials directly affect the quality of the idea . And, by the way, if suddenly, an investor or an investment fund draws attention to your startup, this criterion will be the first by which your startup will be assessed.
Novzin. Often people do not understand that they subconsciously copy other people's thoughts, ideas, and approaches. No, of course, you need to look at the experience of other companies. Why go on the same rake twice. Russian Kickstarter, localized by Facebook. All these projects are good. In the beginning. After some time, their main competitor, from which the main idea was borrowed, comes to Russia. The target audience begins to choose them, and your creation, slowly, but begins to die. As an example - VK. Yes, perhaps there is a target audience (schoolchildren + 1-3 courses). But, look at the statistics, more and more people are choosing Facebook instead of VK. Even the abundance of advertising does not scare people. Why is this happening? Complex issue. In my opinion, this is because the creator of the “idea” develops it, feeling the trends. You, will often turn around, adopt the main innovations. The result is a localized fake, which only creates the appearance of pleasure from use. For some reason, few people try, but why copy? Find contacts of the creator of the idea and invite him to open a regional division of his company. You will have some degree of freedom of action and choice, and you will not meet your competitors with your foreheads (and if you do, you will immediately take a winning position).
Monetization. Many start-up development textbooks teach a budding businessman not to think about monetization. It often happens that the entire organization's potential and monetization are invisible, at an early stage, kills the project, however, this does not mean that we should not think about ways to make a profit. It is necessary for business to develop something. If you are still reading and, at the same time, you think that after half a year, after the launch, the project (any startup is a project) you can buy Porshe Panamera and an apartment for the ruble - finish reading Habr, it will not help anyway. In general, all this is a lie. Everybody lies (C). It’s necessary to think about monetization, but you shouldn’t dwell on one variant that was originally planned. A startup should be flexible, respectively, and plans should change depending on many factors. Few people change the monetization scheme after starting a startup, but for good reason. It is necessary to try various options, analyze, try others, make a choice, but do not stop analyzing. It is worth to stand without moving half a year and, everything, the train left. The main audience becomes boring, there is an outflow of customers, the decline of the motivation of the team, everything collapses.
Something from life, which is very lacking. Quite often, a successful business is obtained from some problem that the founder encountered, but did not find a ready-made solution. This is how great startups come about. If you chase for money or popularity - the focus is not on that. Not on the issue. The output is often a non-functional product. Time spent, strength, perhaps even money. It's a shame. For example, I took as a basis what annoys me. I do not like to wait and waste time in the void. As a special case of this - turn. We are trying to overcome it.
Summarizing the above, what not to do when creating a startup:
- Do not be afraid
- DO NOT need to pull with the creation of a dream company
- DO NOT need to copy other people's ideas.
- DO NOT blindly follow the plan.
- DO NOT put everything on the product for a very small number of users.
Which is better to try:
- To participate in promotions for startups, it helps a lot. For example, Amazon and Habrahabr have quite attractive programs for start-up businesses.
- Use crowdfunding. It is for this that we are here. If you do not like something in the article, narrative style, website - write, discuss, criticize. It helps a lot, although criticism is not always pleasant.
- Try, and everything will turn out. Only with the mind. We tried, whether it will work out - it's up to you.
The founder of the company Picktime.ru .
ps I hope at least someone will be helpful article.
Those who read up to this place - a bonus, cat.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/198446/
All Articles