Where to start, when you do not know where to start

We are punished for our laziness not only by our failures, but also by the luck of others.
Jules Renard

Now it has become fashionable to create startups or participate in them. I succumbed to this mod and want to share my experience. Many business accelerators have appeared, ready to help in the development of new promising companies, incubators, which provide space and equipment for young projects. On the one hand, it seems that all the tools are given, all the expertise is gathered in one place and it seems that absolutely anyone can find an outstanding genius in himself and, most importantly, share this genius with the world. But no, as they say, for every Titanic there is a iceberg.

After analyzing a large number of various sources of information, I made several conclusions for myself, which help me and maybe can help inspired startups not to turn into starperov-losers. It may seem to someone that I cite truths, but we need them first and foremost. And then, each of us is individual, each has his own vision of building a business and implementing his own idea. I just want to help, and I will be glad if at least one person says “thank you”.

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The first and foremost is desire. Desire can move mountains, and lead you to success, and unwillingness will not lead anywhere, and on this occasion there is a good saying: “Desire is thousands of possibilities, unwillingness is thousands of reasons”. Any desire can be killed by a couple of arguments about the fact that it is impossible or irrational.

- Have you done this before?
- Not.
- And I did, you have no idea how difficult it is.

"Best the enemy of the good". In 95 cases out of 100 such an approach can kill even the most sensible idea.
Conclusion: do not be afraid to wish.

The second is help. You don’t always have to pay for help; they can help for free, in the name of an idea. If you manage to infect others with your idea, you can get a great team. This approach works, including in large work teams, as large companies do not always pay attention to enthusiasts, and employees begin to create a “team in a team”. Recall how many cases in a business of forming a full-fledged company from such a team are, as a rule, compact and efficient. As a result, a large company loses some of its competence, but it seems that it is their last concern .
Conclusion: do not be afraid to look for like-minded people and ask for help.

The method works when you dream not to change the scope of activity, but to raise the activity to a new level. When you work in a call center, and want to create the world's best pizzeria with mini pizza, your colleagues are unlikely to help you. Although there are always exceptions, do not neglect them.
Conclusion: break the templates, the rules are not always useful.

The third is financial support. Any startup, like any undertaking in general, needs to be fed materially, and if at the initial stage it seems that one ideological protein is enough, then after a while the moment of reckoning comes in all senses. Remember, money is always needed:
- initially,
- in the middle,
- in the end;
on promotion, on attraction, on development and on many other things. Here the analogy with children works: if you want to develop a child, you invest money in it, if you do not want it, you use the “benefits” of the state.
Conclusion: take care of the money.

Here we will stop in more detail. There are many ways to attract finance to startups, the main ones are attracting mentors, receiving grants, interacting with business angels, receiving investments, loans and other standard schemes. These methods require basic steps, such as a business plan and a prototype. It is easy for someone to assemble a prototype, for someone a business plan is children's fun, but it can be expected that at least one of these stages will become a stumbling block for you. Accordingly, think about the capacities at which you implement both.
Here, by the way, an unplanned conclusion has arrived: first understand what needs to be done, then understand how.

There is still an opportunity to take advantage of the crowdfunding scheme of attracting money, but do not build “castles on the sand” - in order to conduct a crowdfunding company with quality, you will have to supplement the basic stages with marketing - keeping the product / service on everyone’s ears constantly, otherwise the whole campaign will collapse.

Separately, I will highlight the old method of fundraising - Donat, I call him a "beggar":

Submit, good people, to the genius of thought for the realization of a brilliant idea.

In the distant nineties, one of my favorite companies just came out of the crisis. But why bother, and today there are companies whose turnover is estimated at billions of dollars, and they all ask and ask for help from the National Wealth Fund.

Of course, there is still a source in the form of own funds, but here comments are superfluous.

Fourth - patron. Now business accelerators can act as patrons, but because of them there is a substitution of concepts. In this case, it means the patron. The one who tells you where, with whom and how you can agree, the one who can write a letter, call, speak, so that you can be heard and helped. A kind of Sensei startup. Disappoint - in reality, I have not met such. There are consultants, there are those who are ready to share their successes and talk about how they gnawed granite, but who are ready to offer a hand of mutual help - there are none. We don’t confuse patrons with business angels and mentors, they, in essence, othaap a piece of a small and promising company for a penny, so that when it grows up, they can sell it more expensive. This is not help, but business.
Conclusion: weigh the possibilities and throw away the rose-colored glasses.

Fifth , the last is here, but not the last for beginners. Remember, no matter how brilliant your idea is, there is always someone who implements it faster, and possibly better. You must be quicker than your competitors. In this case, the mistake will be to develop an idea within four walls, for fear of intellectual theft. You should always be aware of the latest news concerning the scope of your idea, and, for that matter, do not be afraid to share some stages of the development of the idea with the public and future consumers. Let it be a kind of usability test.
I think we need to finish.
Oh yeah, I completely forgot. Still need a pinch of immaterial and unpredictable success. So good luck to you guys!