Month: December 2011

As a person who makes a decision on regular basis I always try to verify my idea whenever possible using various methods. Some people say that sharing your idea and getting feedback too early just makes it difficult to foresee the right direction. I totally agree with that, but just in case you have enough knowledges and experiences about the subject that you are going to make a decision.

Here are 5 tips I often use before making any decision. These tips are helpful but not always applicable since there are many situations where you have to make a decision without asking anyone. But knowing these tips sometimes saves you from going wrong direction and some of these tips weren’t simply available until recently.

1) Use Facebook poll feature

For example, we are currently conducting a poll on Facebook to decide new brand name for our prize winning project. To be more precise, we are letting people choose a domain name for our service. I wouldn’t say there is no risk involved with disclosing your potential domain names especially when they are not secured and not purchased by you. However, in return you will receive a fair amount of reactions from people in your social graph about what they think it should be. This kind of quick survey wasn’t possible few years ago.

2) Post a question on Quora

Quora used to be a tech related Q&A site but now it is used for wide range of topics and discussions. Some people use Quora just to get the answers to a specific question. Others use it as a marketing tool to see if there is any potential or interest in the audiences they are targeting. Again, sharing your thoughts in open space like Quora cannot be free from risks. But most often you will receive very insightful feedback from the knowledgeable people.

3) Run a contest on Prizes

Prizes is the website where you can create a contest and get ideas from people. The website was originally created by the Slide team, whose company under the same Slide was acquired by Google in 2010. People use Prizes to get the ideas about a brand name, a logo, and even a name for their newborn baby. Use of Prizes does not exactly verify your idea, but rather helps you gather more options for you to choose from. You could’ve achieve the same thing using Elance or oDesk by outsourcing it to someone else. However, Prizes made it easier.

4) Ask your advisors

Although I never happen to be a member of Y Combinator or 500 Startups, I heard that the first thing you as an entrepreneur participating those programs are asked is to close advisory round of investment. Advisory round of investment basically means finding the angel investors who have decent experiences in the same field you are conducting your business and having these people as advisory members in your startup by receiving relatively small amount of investment from them. These people are there to help you in many ways, and they are particularly helpful when shaping your idea. This is strongly recommended.

5) Ask your team members

This is the last but not least option you can take. Your team members are always willing to give you a thoughtful feedback about your idea even if none of them has the same amount of entrepreneurial experiences as you. Don’t underestimate the inputs from your team members because they are often considered as the most valuable users who are passionate about your service or product. I always listen to them whenever they have something to say.

That’s all. I understand some of them are fundamental to those experienced entrepreneurs. However, I have seen many aspiring entrepreneurs being afraid of putting their ideas in front of people and ended up with spending countless hours or days thinking alone. At the end of the day ideas are just ideas. Execution is what drives a startup. So don’t be afraid.

When you build a startup, you think of a market where you will conduct business in the future.

Some entrepreneurs choose the existing market established by other companies and frequently it’s already a bit congested. Others choose to cultivate one by themselves so that there is no one else to compete, which I believe rarely the case especially for the Internet related businesses.

Whether you choose the existing market or not, you will have to find an entry point where you think your startup can outperform others from the beginning and later stick one of your legs there.

This leg is thought to be particularly important not just in the beginning but also when your startup decides to pivot years later if not months. Without securing a leg, there is a good change that the startup will fall when it actually tries to pivot. This often means leaving the entire users, lack of tractions, or simply a company going nowhere.

I’ve seen many entrepreneurs ended up with this situation and I know from my experience this is the case to many startups that could not survive. If your both legs are detached from the ground, anything you do is pretty much same as pushing a yarn in the air. You will get no reaction regardless of what you do.

This is why identifying the right entry point is very crucial to all startups because that entry point eventually becomes the place where you will decide to stick your right leg later. Many entrepreneurs tend to follow the market established by some pioneer companies and they soon find out there is no place left to secure their leg. Photo sharing, social commerce, all sorts of social games are good examples these days.

I don’t mean following trend is necessarily a bad thing. But it becomes difficult to find the right entry point if you follow it. My advise is as discussed earlier to focus on actual needs but not just problems. And you have to be super passionate about the problem you are trying to solve. I believe this is the only way for aspiring entrepreneurs to find the right entry point that leads to securing their leg.