When it comes to ideas, entrepreneurs all think they’ve got the next big thing. That may be the case, but a lot of the time, that idea might be, and very likely, already is flawed. One thing that I’ve learned since my time at TechStars has been that the product you’re building, 90% of the time, is not going to be what you originally sought out to do. In some cases, it doesn’t even resemble what you had originally intended.
But that’s not all a bad thing! Nine of the ten teams (socialthing! included) at TechStars have altered their ideas, some just to put more focus on one portion of their product, some to change their idea completely. Many of the mentors that we’ve worked with thus far have all let us know that this is totally normal, and in many times a sign of a good entrepreneur or team.
When we originally submitted our application to TechStars, we were asked time and time again by David Cohen (the guy that runs the show here) whether or not we thought we would be coachable. At first, I was thinking that we might not be the most receptive to advice, mainly because we were 100% certain the idea we had was rock solid. David had suggested one thing to us, that we might turn our idea on its head and go in a new direction. We were initially opposed to the idea because we felt like what we were doing was right. Within a few days of being at the TechStars office we started to realize that maybe David was right, and with a lot of discussion, we altered our approach. It’s been by far the best decision we’ve made thus far. Our new focus has really lit a fire up under us and now we’re trucking along a lot faster than we had originally intended.
The advice didn’t stop there. Many of the mentors at TechStars have been completely invaluable in understanding what our application is truly going to offer the world. Some of those people have suggested we take one feature in one particular direction. In some cases, this advice was good, in others, it didn’t necessarily line up with what our intention for socialthing! was. But learning from this advice and seeing what people thought about your app can sure put things into perspective, regardless of whether or not the advice was good. One thing to keep in mind is that you don’t need TechStars, or even a great list of mentors to help you out with your idea. You could merely present your idea to a family member, a friend, or possibly even a complete stranger. See if they understand it, and ask how they might apply it to their behaviors and if they would use such a product. This can some of the most critical advice that you can get.
If you’re working on an idea of your own, one of the biggest pieces of advice I could possibly give is to be attentive and listen to the people around you. You’ve got to realize early on that you’re probably not going to know everything about what you’re doing, or at least you may not be thinking about your idea in many of the critical ways that it needs to be looked at. Many different people can give you all kinds of different advice. The key is to know how to collect all this data and apply it to what you’re doing. Once you start listening, your idea will really take off and you’ll start to understand it from a lot more directions than you originally had thought.
[tags]techstars, david cohen, entrepreneurship, ideas, advice[/tags]
