How to avoid the death of a startup in the bud
How to avoid the death of a startup in the bud: 6 ways not to let your ideas perish in difficult times
"Heck! It was one of the ideas of my startup. ”
')
It was my immediate reaction when I saw news about a one-year startup that was purchased for $ 30 million a couple of months ago. I came up with the same idea for a startup 2 years ago, living in a hostel, during my college studies. Damn it, there are already a dozen successful companies built on ideas that were born in my dorm room and were immediately discarded.
And a few more ideas that were sharpened by the idea of ​​MVP (but the product was minimally workable - translator's comment), but were soon abandoned. I don’t even know if I should be glad that I have such great ideas. Taken together, they would pull on a billion dollars.
The fact that even a tiny share of this amount is not reflected in my bank account suggests that ideas that are not followed by proper actions to translate them into life are worthless.
I was surprised, but, perhaps, I was a little consoled by the fact that it was not me who was killing ideas before they could develop and realize their full potential. I witnessed how my friends did. Hell, Evan Williams himself sinned like this before he founded Blogger, Twitter and Medium.
“After the closure of my first company (at 25), I looked back and counted 32 different projects — most of them were related to new products or product varieties — I started them (and never completed) the previous year. I realized that this could be one of the reasons for my defeat. ” - Evan Williams
The birth and death of ideas take place under a similar scenario.
You think of messy things in your soul or staring into the all-consuming darkness in the middle of the night when an idea suddenly illuminates you.
You pass it through your own, highly subjective filters of good and bad ideas. If she did not pass, she dies here and now, without even being able to turn into something substantial. If it is approved - the real fun begins!
Now you are in a state of ideological euphoria. You can't stop thinking about the last enlightenments that hit you. You can immediately predict how far your ideas go. And it seems that all parts make up a harmonious whole. This may well be the next Google or Facebook!
You can't wait to discuss this idea with your friends. Many of them share your enthusiasm. Others you just ignore.
You have several people in your team and you start creating a product around an idea. You want to introduce him to the world as quickly as possible.
OK, now the product is running. And you expect that the whole world will demolish the roof of your invention.
You share information on a social network and see a spark of interest. You get a couple of hundred likes on your Facebook page.
You expose the product on the sites of Product Hunt, Hacker News and also get some publicity. Many people try your product and give you feedback. Everything is going very well!
If your product is not Instagram, then the early interest in it is slowly fading. Your excitement dies with it. You are slowly approaching the Trough of Sorrow.
After the initial euphoria has passed, and the glamor of the idea no longer blinds you, a cruel reality begins. After user reviews, you start to notice serious holes in your idea. And you do not have exact answers to the question "How to patch them?"
Your product does not match the market. Damn it, you don’t know what it is and what it is eaten with. You do not know how to ensure a steady flow of new users.
At this stage, most startup ideas die. Their creators give up or become passionate about other ideas and change strategy (which, as a rule, means promoting a completely different idea).
Ideas at their initial stage of development are like babies, they are not able to stand up and run on their own. They need to go out with patience. They need time to go to the mountain.
If you patiently develop your product and idea, then you can get a chance of success. If on the way there are difficulties, then try the following:
This is normal: think about putting an end to your new idea, when everything is going wrong.
Do not give up because of problems - they are part of the “dowry” of each startup. It is necessary to consider the closure of the project only when you have lost all faith in a startup.
When your original idea gives you problems in its implementation, your ingenious mind will find even more attractive ideas, which you should follow. And they will be completely devoid of seemingly intractable problems that you are facing now.
A couple of times I did it. It is not surprising that every “ideal idea” gives birth to a multitude of problems as soon as you are seriously engaged in its implementation. The severe effect of Danning-Kruger takes effect.
It is better to pursue a current idea, on which large pitfalls you already know, than to chase a new one, whose problems may suddenly appear on the horizon.
Even taking into account the fact that while you should not turn to completely different projects, you should be open to making small changes to your idea or business model after each iteration (cycle) and receiving feedback from users.
Love your idea, but don't rush to marry her.
When you do not get support from the market, then you may want to try to get it from investors. Given the current investment policy, you can quite successfully raise money, despite all your problems.
And you will be a little happier. Investors are not stupid people. Their belief in your idea will become a kind of test and guarantee of success, right?
Not.
Never confuse checking ideas with investors and checking consumers.
Since startups collect money for activities wherever possible, it is not difficult to confuse the accumulation of funds with success. In fact, everything looks different. Together with the investments come high responsibility and pressure.
There are many examples of how startups lost ground, collecting hundreds of millions of dollars. Remember the projects Better Place, Webvan and Solyndra.
At the same time, you must collect money for your project if you don’t have enough runway length for experiments and for bringing the product to the appropriate market.
Starting out in pursuit of new specialists or throwing thousands of dollars in advertising to attract users, you will not make your product suitable for a particular market. Unfortunately, some problems cannot be solved by capital investments alone.
Advertising users can create a deceptive sense of security. And if your product is "not at all", most of them will soon be gone. You will not be able to get support without doing well your product in the first place. As one old quote says,
“The worst thing that can happen to a bad product is good marketing.”
The arrival of a large number of people (more than the necessary minimum) is guaranteed to reduce the length of the runway and reduce the efficiency of your team.
At this stage, your hands may fall. A hunch of imminent failure hovers in the air.
The natural reaction to this is to go to work and work hard, stop sleeping and enjoy the time spent with family and friends. Often this leads to low productivity and exhaustion: both moral and physical.
You can’t find a solution right away. The ideological potential, unfortunately, does not have a power button. You need to give yourself time to experiment and find what suits you.
OK, panicking, maybe not worth it.
Your mind must be calm to produce creative solutions to your problems. I have often noticed that relaxed walks are a better source of answers than the hours spent in front of a computer screen.
There is no single recipe on how to endure ( and translate as precisely as possible - the translator’s note ) this phase, because each startup is unique and has its own unique set of problems.
The path is as obvious as it is undefined. By successive approximations, you must make your product suitable for the market. You must move on. As Ben Horowitz says:
“It's like playing three-dimensional chess from Star Trek - there is always a move.”
Not all startups survive this stage and succeed. But if you made it, you have a good chance to witness how your project goes uphill. And for the sake of this chance and live entrepreneurs!
We are also making our way through the Valley of Grief, and our current startup is FundaMine!
FundaMine is a community for professionals where you can find out what the experts in their profession read and discuss. We have communities dedicated to entrepreneurship, product management, Android development, and more. We will be glad if you visit our page, write feedback and thereby help us in our battle!
"Heck! It was one of the ideas of my startup. ”
')
It was my immediate reaction when I saw news about a one-year startup that was purchased for $ 30 million a couple of months ago. I came up with the same idea for a startup 2 years ago, living in a hostel, during my college studies. Damn it, there are already a dozen successful companies built on ideas that were born in my dorm room and were immediately discarded.
And a few more ideas that were sharpened by the idea of ​​MVP (but the product was minimally workable - translator's comment), but were soon abandoned. I don’t even know if I should be glad that I have such great ideas. Taken together, they would pull on a billion dollars.
The fact that even a tiny share of this amount is not reflected in my bank account suggests that ideas that are not followed by proper actions to translate them into life are worthless.
I was surprised, but, perhaps, I was a little consoled by the fact that it was not me who was killing ideas before they could develop and realize their full potential. I witnessed how my friends did. Hell, Evan Williams himself sinned like this before he founded Blogger, Twitter and Medium.
“After the closure of my first company (at 25), I looked back and counted 32 different projects — most of them were related to new products or product varieties — I started them (and never completed) the previous year. I realized that this could be one of the reasons for my defeat. ” - Evan Williams
The birth and death of ideas take place under a similar scenario.
EUREKA!
You think of messy things in your soul or staring into the all-consuming darkness in the middle of the night when an idea suddenly illuminates you.
You pass it through your own, highly subjective filters of good and bad ideas. If she did not pass, she dies here and now, without even being able to turn into something substantial. If it is approved - the real fun begins!
Now you are in a state of ideological euphoria. You can't stop thinking about the last enlightenments that hit you. You can immediately predict how far your ideas go. And it seems that all parts make up a harmonious whole. This may well be the next Google or Facebook!
You can't wait to discuss this idea with your friends. Many of them share your enthusiasm. Others you just ignore.
You have several people in your team and you start creating a product around an idea. You want to introduce him to the world as quickly as possible.
PRODUCTION OF THE PRODUCT ON THE MARKET
OK, now the product is running. And you expect that the whole world will demolish the roof of your invention.
You share information on a social network and see a spark of interest. You get a couple of hundred likes on your Facebook page.
You expose the product on the sites of Product Hunt, Hacker News and also get some publicity. Many people try your product and give you feedback. Everything is going very well!
AFTER PRODUCTION ON THE MARKET
If your product is not Instagram, then the early interest in it is slowly fading. Your excitement dies with it. You are slowly approaching the Trough of Sorrow.
After the initial euphoria has passed, and the glamor of the idea no longer blinds you, a cruel reality begins. After user reviews, you start to notice serious holes in your idea. And you do not have exact answers to the question "How to patch them?"
Your product does not match the market. Damn it, you don’t know what it is and what it is eaten with. You do not know how to ensure a steady flow of new users.
At this stage, most startup ideas die. Their creators give up or become passionate about other ideas and change strategy (which, as a rule, means promoting a completely different idea).
Ideas at their initial stage of development are like babies, they are not able to stand up and run on their own. They need to go out with patience. They need time to go to the mountain.
If you patiently develop your product and idea, then you can get a chance of success. If on the way there are difficulties, then try the following:
1. Try not to give up
This is normal: think about putting an end to your new idea, when everything is going wrong.
Do not give up because of problems - they are part of the “dowry” of each startup. It is necessary to consider the closure of the project only when you have lost all faith in a startup.
2. Do not chase another idea.
When your original idea gives you problems in its implementation, your ingenious mind will find even more attractive ideas, which you should follow. And they will be completely devoid of seemingly intractable problems that you are facing now.
A couple of times I did it. It is not surprising that every “ideal idea” gives birth to a multitude of problems as soon as you are seriously engaged in its implementation. The severe effect of Danning-Kruger takes effect.
It is better to pursue a current idea, on which large pitfalls you already know, than to chase a new one, whose problems may suddenly appear on the horizon.
3. Be open to making some changes to your existing idea.
Even taking into account the fact that while you should not turn to completely different projects, you should be open to making small changes to your idea or business model after each iteration (cycle) and receiving feedback from users.
Love your idea, but don't rush to marry her.
4. Do not be tempted to raise money to solve all problems.
When you do not get support from the market, then you may want to try to get it from investors. Given the current investment policy, you can quite successfully raise money, despite all your problems.
And you will be a little happier. Investors are not stupid people. Their belief in your idea will become a kind of test and guarantee of success, right?
Not.
Never confuse checking ideas with investors and checking consumers.
Since startups collect money for activities wherever possible, it is not difficult to confuse the accumulation of funds with success. In fact, everything looks different. Together with the investments come high responsibility and pressure.
There are many examples of how startups lost ground, collecting hundreds of millions of dollars. Remember the projects Better Place, Webvan and Solyndra.
At the same time, you must collect money for your project if you don’t have enough runway length for experiments and for bringing the product to the appropriate market.
5. Do not be tempted to waste money on solving all problems.
Starting out in pursuit of new specialists or throwing thousands of dollars in advertising to attract users, you will not make your product suitable for a particular market. Unfortunately, some problems cannot be solved by capital investments alone.
Advertising users can create a deceptive sense of security. And if your product is "not at all", most of them will soon be gone. You will not be able to get support without doing well your product in the first place. As one old quote says,
“The worst thing that can happen to a bad product is good marketing.”
The arrival of a large number of people (more than the necessary minimum) is guaranteed to reduce the length of the runway and reduce the efficiency of your team.
6. Treat yourself condescendingly and give yourself time.
At this stage, your hands may fall. A hunch of imminent failure hovers in the air.
The natural reaction to this is to go to work and work hard, stop sleeping and enjoy the time spent with family and friends. Often this leads to low productivity and exhaustion: both moral and physical.
You can’t find a solution right away. The ideological potential, unfortunately, does not have a power button. You need to give yourself time to experiment and find what suits you.
OK, panicking, maybe not worth it.
Your mind must be calm to produce creative solutions to your problems. I have often noticed that relaxed walks are a better source of answers than the hours spent in front of a computer screen.
EXIT FROM THE “VALLEY OF THE SORB”
There is no single recipe on how to endure ( and translate as precisely as possible - the translator’s note ) this phase, because each startup is unique and has its own unique set of problems.
The path is as obvious as it is undefined. By successive approximations, you must make your product suitable for the market. You must move on. As Ben Horowitz says:
“It's like playing three-dimensional chess from Star Trek - there is always a move.”
Not all startups survive this stage and succeed. But if you made it, you have a good chance to witness how your project goes uphill. And for the sake of this chance and live entrepreneurs!
We are also making our way through the Valley of Grief, and our current startup is FundaMine!
FundaMine is a community for professionals where you can find out what the experts in their profession read and discuss. We have communities dedicated to entrepreneurship, product management, Android development, and more. We will be glad if you visit our page, write feedback and thereby help us in our battle!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/292896/
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