Startup Ideas: Ask Yourself 5 Questions
February 26, 2009 by Stephen Kersey
Filed under Business
When you are in the process of coming up with ideas for a startup business, there are many things you have to consider to figure out whether you have a viable idea. Here are five questions to ask yourself about your plan for a new business:
Photo credit: sxc.hu
5. Can you make the time?
Not many people can quit their day job and focus strictly on a startup business. With that in mind, the first question you should ask yourself is whether you have the time to see your idea through to the end. Time is an essential yet underrated aspect of any successful business model.
4. Do you have the necessary knowledge?
Depending on the field, a lack of knowledge usually is a death knell for a startup. If you don’t have the knowledge yourself, you should have clear ways to add people to your team who can bring the necessary know-how.
3. Can you come up with the startup costs?
You can have the best business idea in existence but if you don’t have the means to come up with the needed startup money, the idea isn’t worth much to you. In fact, you could damage your personal long-term financial stability by trying to reach an unrealistic startup dollar number.
2. Do you understand your target demographics?
In just about any business, knowing your customer is extremely important. If you don’t know what and who you are targeting the other end of your business plan, you are basically just throwing pebbles in the dark.
1. Do you a passion for the idea?
This question is number one for a reason. Without passion, it’s almost impossible to head a successful startup business. You need the boundless motivation and drive to see the startup from its infancy to its growing stages and finally into adulthood.
Those are some good ones. I can answer yes to most of them, the few I cant I’m still learning. I have to agree that number one is the most important. If you have a passion, the rest will come through the eagerness to learn. Though knowing what you’re doing as apposed to getting someone to do it for you helps a lot. For the startup I’m working on, I code everything myself because I love to do it and I also that do not have the money to pay coders and freelancers. I find that I can get exactly what I want by doing it myself. However in the future I have plans to form a team.
Startup money is pretty important. For most people who don’t have time to take the load of the whole project. But basically, everything costs money. Adverts, marketing, staff, technical maintenance, business costs and everything else.
Good stuff here!
Clinton