In every cubicle is sitting a startup founder, dreaming and molding his innovative ideas. Who would not aspire to become the Gates and the Jobs instead of sitting in the confined to his 6×6 cubicle for life! In modern times, the greater few of them are daring out to venture their model into the competition. The aspirations of all those Pakistani startup ideas which venture out are extremely high unless they get a tight slap on their face from the consumer or end-user of their product. The first slap feels quite heavy; mightier enough to blow many of them beyond the race. Few charmer with thicker skin are able to survive the punch, although little deformed or changed.
Related: Is Your Startup Idea Really A Business?
This change ensures their better adjustment in the market and gives them the desired shape as per the consumer requirements. These hard-skin guys cover a few more miles until another strong punch makes few of them more perfect while offloading the few others. Punch after punch and the Darwin’s Survival of the fittest gets morphed to Survival of the thickest. What we mean is that only those thick-skinned, who are persistent enough to sustain the consecutive blows after blows, qualify the necessary basic eligibility criteria for becoming an entrepreneur. The rest of them are those who were just meant for the cubicles; they mistakenly chose to be offended by the ruthless market.
Well there are many differences between a startup and a business. A startup is not about profits, it’s about the idea and business is usually not a unique idea but things which are proven to make money before. A business lacks growth which a startup usually has. Most startups, from what we’ve seen are delivery, or grocery startups.. some even operate in just one city, without realising our basic culture belongs to a much simpler and traditional economy of this part of the world. The above paragraph brings the two basic eligibility criteria for any successful startup. First being the persistence and the second being the flexibility or adaptability. Empires are not built in a day and not so are the Apples and the Microsoft! Every venture requires a particular incubation or nurture period. Efforts are to be put until it grows to support. Expecting to reap the paddy crop in the first month of cultivation is nothing but the sheer ignorance of the peasant about the farming etiquettes.If startups are to flourish then there must be a list of questions.
Validation: Next is the rule of persistent flexibility or adaptability which shapes or grooms any business idea according to the market requirement and expectations. Any rigidity in this regard will necessarily flush you out of business. The successful idea is one which the user likes. Any idea having millions of professionals but which the consumer doesn’t find suitable, is not expected to survive. Suiting the user requirements is the holy rule to a successful product. Change yourself as per the idea of your users. Never be egoistic about your ideas or business model. Success is the ultimate goal, no matter, how many times you change your pattern of products. This evolution of product is the next most important decisive factor for a successful venture.
Related: 5 Lessons Disney Teaches Startups about building a Business Brand
- The team should get out and talk to customers. The first step is to leave your assumptions aside: we all have startup ideas we would like to turn into products, however, they are just our own and so we tend to be a bit biased. Do not consider yourself as the ultimate startup ideas generator.
- Are you actually solving a problem? Look for common questions being asked: people trying to fix a problem they have, looking for a better way to do something, complaining about an existing tool’s shortcomings. You get the idea.
- What’s your clear value proposition to that customer? Now, think about how you could help those people by building a product or providing a service — if you decide to provide a service, try to present it in a way to make it look like a product, WPCurve-style.
- Have you identified a specific target market? At this point you should know what you want to build. It’s time to build the easiest, yet still useful, version of your product. Read about Best tech startup ideas from GIKI.
Execution and Design: Do you work well as a team? To most of us, making money is the idea and goal behind setting up a business. However, if business should be chosen carefully based upon one’s interest, capabilities, market demands and the timing to start. Keeping the focus on monitory gain can be advocated by hard-core businessmen, but a business with human touch is the smart tactics to reach the heart of your user or consumer. Capital gains are an obvious consequence of any well calculated and flexible business model in which persistent efforts are put.
- Do you have an MVP or prototype to present? Once you build the first version, your focus should be on promoting your product and the best way to do it is to start a blog and talk to your audience, helping them by writing great content that speaks directly to them and gets them to realize how much value you can provide them.
- How functional is the demo? Remember, the focus of a business should be on delivering value and making money while doing so, unlike a usualstartup, whose sole purpose often seems to be burning money and thinking of ways to eventually turn a profit in the future.
- Is the usability of the product easy and friendly? Design Matters! Ever wondered why we always hear about the Jobses, Zuckerbergs, Kalanicks and Cheskys, and only about them? That’s because there are not many people who can actually build something so successful and disruptive.
Business Model: Does your solution solve a core need/problem? Men built the empires and those are the men who turn them to ashes. It’s the mental configuration or the psychological stability which makes it all possible, firstly you may consult a doctor,and discuss about Psychological Problem. Thinking rationally and flexibly, acting purposefully and dealing effectively with the environment is what makes a successful entrepreneur.
Anyone can create a job for themselves. But not everyone can change the world — Dan Norris
- Do your present a value proposition. The problem is the way most approach entrepreneurship is flawed from the beginning. They try to be disruptors, build the new put-successful-company-name-here and end up with a unicorn. Unfortunately, though, not many of those actually have the chutzpah and genius needed to do that.
- Is it unique? Too many people focus on money when beginning in entrepreneurship. They dream of billion dollar valuations, fame and IPOs. However, that’s not the best way to start a business.
- How will you differentiate themselves from your competition (do you identify competition)? Tangible products may need much more engineering and testing in order to make a REAL product RELIABLE.
- What is the go-to-market/launch strategy? So, please don’t waste your time on pitching the ideas. Just keep going. Before moving to the big step, take small steps to raise the capital. You will learn a lot of things from the society by then. Read: How can I get Website Traffic for My Newly Launched Startup?
- How will you make money? The focus from day one should be on getting clients to pay for your product.
If you need a lot of money first, then it’s not a good startup idea for a business. A solid and healthy venture, should get the money it needs from its customers, not from VCs. - What is the user acquisition model? Startups are necessary to support modern infrastructure, the environment changes constantly incl customer behaviour and buying habits therefore western countries rely on people to actively develop systems to bring in massive amount of revenue globally; however, we Pakistani’s think its small business startup ideas that starts to grow into a huge thing by luck.
