Statistics are merciless – more than 90% of startups fail. Failures happen for various reasons – among them, lack of experience, lack of necessary knowledge, and poor development of the business idea.
Although an idea alone is not enough when creating a business, it is the most important component of a startup. Moreover, the main quality of an idea is its viability. Many founders rush to implement the idea into reality and neglect testing hypotheses, which can lead to failure.
For example, one of the Silicon Valley startups was a project to produce juicers that would make juice from pre-crushed fruits in special bags. They planned to sell such juicers for $ 400. The project was already launched when it became obvious that both the machines and the bags of fruit were too expensive even for a wealthy audience – accordingly, it failed.
How to understand that your idea will not fail? Here are three main criteria:
- The idea meets the needs of the market. At the very beginning, you need to study potential customers and their needs. Based on this, you will be able to create a product or service that the audience will really need.
- The idea is competitive. Answer the question honestly: can you offer customers the same thing as other companies, but at a lower price or with better quality? If the answer is “no”, the chance of creating a successful business will be minimal.
- The idea is fresh. It is necessary to constantly and carefully monitor industry trends in order to have time to occupy your niche. Even if you create a product that is similar to others, bring something unique to it – something that has not been seen on the market yet.