The Startup
Entrepreneur's Greatest Challenge
The startup
entrepreneur's greatest challenge is to weigh possible sunk costs
(throwing good money or effort after bad), against the power of
persistence.
Time and effort
are the entrepreneur's greatest inherent assets. These are
complemented by capital, a good supporting team (and good advice) and
a large network of active relationships. The entrepreneur in the
startup phase of his or her business should expect to face numerous,
often discouraging obstacles to adoption and success. And arriving at
an appreciable success can take time. During this time period the
entrepreneur may well be faced with doubts about the viability of his
or her basic idea.
The challenge,
while the startup entrepreneur is watching and waiting, is to
determine if the project has enough quality and substance to continue
expending time, effort and capital into it, or whether the viability
just isn't there, and to write the expenditure to that point off as a
sunk cost, and shift his or her focus to another project – to
“scrub the mission” and proceed to another, unrelated project.
Choosing whether or not to invest further into the project and allow
time to be the determining factor of success is a critical decision.
There is so
much to be said (and there are so many stories) of entrepreneurs and
inventors who believed so fervently in the viability, importance and
marketability of what they were doing that they just held their
ground and kept on plugging away until the tides started to turn in
favor of success. Then there are the untold stories of the hordes of
aspiring inventors and entrepreneurs who mistook a lack of
early-stage success for a lack of viability that they simply quit. In
some cases, the decision to quit was warranted – in other cases
(and we'll never be able to get any statistics on these), had the
entrepreneur or inventor continued along the course, it might have
caught on – or with some modification, it might have been a certain
winner.
Things are not
always that black and white. If the entrepreneur or inventor truly
believes in the viability of the idea, and, upon discussion with some
or his or her advisors, mentors and relationship contacts, gets some
positive feedback about the idea, perhaps the best solution is to
reframe or to re-package some aspect of the idea at issue instead of
simply throwing away erroneously. Perhaps the idea, project, or
invention is just not being represented in its most appealing
fashion. Sometimes “tweaking” the presentation or packaging of
the idea will accelerate its course to adoption and success.
As a startup
entrepreneur, I would plead with you not to jettison an idea about
which you are truly passionate. While I don't believe in wasting
resources on an idea, project or invention which is simply not good,
I believe that we believe in our ideas for a reason. Whether that
reason is just a function of our own strong opinion or whether it is
a manifestation of the collective conscientiousness, please give your
idea, your dream a chance to flourish... and instead of abandoning
something which could truly be ingenious, invest some time and
solicit feedback regarding a potential reframing, repositioning or
repackaging of your idea. It's far better to “tweak” some aspect
of a brilliant idea (or its presentation) than to throw away an asset
which may prove to be something of great utility to Humanity... or at
least a market segment of it.
Startup
entrepreneurs: You've put so much thought and passion into your idea,
project or invention. Evaluate your situation very carefully before
you write off your dream as a sunk cost. Your tenacity and audacity
(these plus some creativity and a modifications) might well mean the
difference between a slow start to a certain success or another
contribution to the ever-increasing junkpile of great starts which
were stillborn or aborted because the entrepreneur simply gave up and
quit too soon.
Labels,
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entrepreneur, entrepreneurship business, persistence, sunk costs,
patience, GEI Consulting, Douglas E Castle, capital, team, project,
invention, innovation...
Thank you as
always for reading me.
Douglas
Castle for Global
Edge International Consulting Associates, Inc. and The
Global Edge International Blog
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