The First Step to Launching a Startup that isn’t a Bridge to Nowhere
There’s a sad truth about launching a startup. The idea you start with will not be the idea that leads to your success. This is sad for two reasons:
- Most people never launch their startup because they’re afraid their idea isn’t good enough
- Nobody’s first idea is good enough
Therefore, if you spend all your time and energy on a idea that isn’t that good, there’s a huge risk that you’re building a bridge to nowhere. So if a great idea is not what you need to launch your startup, what do you need instead?
A GREAT PROBLEM
Yes, that’s right. For startup success you need a great problem to solve not a great idea to solve it. A great idea will help, and you will eventually have one if you focus on the problem. Just don’t get caught up in feeling like having a great idea is a prerequisite for getting started. History has proven that it’s better to get started with your “not good enough” idea than to do nothing.
Brad Smith, the chairman & CEO of Intuit sums up this point nicely in his famous quote, “Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution.”
Smith goes on to state:
It’s human nature to love our own ideas. But sometimes that means that we hang on to them too long. Along the leadership or innovation journey, you must ask: Are we making sufficient progress to believe that our original hypothesis is correct, or do we need to make a change? If you never lose sight of the problem, how you attack the solution can remain more flexible, iterative and ultimately, be more likely to succeed.
Read more of Smith’s advice related to this topic in his article titled “Five Things Every Leader Should Do“