9 great Myths… About Successful Startups
In today's blog we have scooped up some common misconceptions, fallacies and all together myths about successful startups… read along and you might be surprised!
If you build it, they will come.
NO, THEY WON'T. We live in an incredibly competitive market.
Building a community of people whose attention and trust you have and actually make them want to do business with you is more difficult than building the product, most of the time.
Your success depends on your idea.
Your business idea is a “direction”.
The direction is only 10% of the effort.
The 90% is hard work, high-quality decision making, great work ethos, creativity, understanding people, finances and knowing how market demand works.
You have to be the first to market.
Not necessarily. Being the second, third, or even a latecomer to the market have it’s advantages.
A) You spend less on R&D.
B) You spend less on market education.
C) You deal with less risk related to product acceptance.
D) You will potentially spend less on customer acquisition.
You need to hurry up.
It’s rarely the case. You don't have to strive for "Winner takes it all" to be a successful startup. Don't lose your spirit when faced with competition.
Sure, the winner takes it all in some market dynamics, but it's not a universal business law.
Startups need a unique idea to succeed.
The main reason behind startup success lies in the business model, product positioning, and customer experience, not the uniqueness of the idea. Facebook was not the first social network. Google was not the first search engine and Apple didn’t invent the computer.
You can educate your market.
You most likely can’t… unless you have a tremendous amount of capital to spend on marketing. Educating the market to uncover a new customer need is incredibly expensive.
You should start building if you think you have a great idea.
Nope! Research and validate first. Ask the market for feedback. Do extensive market research.
Test the concept with a landing page, gain traction and listen. If the response is good, invest.
The best age to start a business is 20 to 30.
Data shows that the success rates are highest for founders aged 35 and above.
Mainly because you have acquired critical business and interpersonal skills and you probably have more financial power in that period of your life.
If we get investors on we will make it.
Couldn't be further from the truth. Research shows that the failure rate is close to being the same for funded businesses as for non-funded. They just fail for slightly different reasons. Keep in mind that it's extremely time-consuming to deal with VC's. Spend your time acquiring customers and boot strap for as long as possible.
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Best regards
The Heroic Rhino Team