Several startup ideas, how to do?

#1

Post by mitch37 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 6:11 PM UTC

Hi, I happened to have a few startup ideas that I believe are relevant tech and business wise, how to proceed? One option would be to simply pick up the most promising one, wait some years, sell the company and run the next one, providing it's still relevant. But isn't it possible to run them in parallel in a way while still maximizing their success and without losing too much equity?

Re: Several startup ideas, how to do?

#2

Post by cblock811 » Sat, Jun 20, 2015, 6:53 PM UTC

Effectively running one company is hard enough. Unless you have a team to help you, I wouldn't recommend running both if you are serious about them.

Picking the one with the most traction is fine. Also picking the one that excites you the most is good. You could pick based on any number of criteria really. But I would still stick to one.

Re: Several startup ideas, how to do?

#3

Post by andersthue » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 7:52 AM UTC

Have your read "lean startup", by Eric Rise?

I would never run multiple startups, but I think you could do the initial research to see which idea has any real chance of succes by following the method laid out in the book!

Re: Several startup ideas, how to do?

#4

Post by mitch37 » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 8:24 AM UTC

cblock811 wrote: post #2

Effectively running one company is hard enough. Unless you have a team to help you, I wouldn't recommend running both if you are serious about them. Picking the one with the most traction is fine. Also picking the one that excites you the most is good. You could pick based on any number of criteria really. But I would still stick to one.

I know, I don't necessary want to run them, but maybe be co-founder and tech advisor

Re: Several startup ideas, how to do?

#5

Post by GFischer » Sun, Jun 21, 2015, 3:35 PM UTC

andersthue wrote: post #3

Have your read "lean startup", by Eric Rise? I would never run multiple startups, but I think you could do the initial research to see which idea has any real chance of succes by following the method laid out in the book!

This... sort your ideas in terms of which ones you like the most - if you like them equally, do a coin flip - as someone said, if you want the coin to land on one side, you actually had a preference.

Talk them over with someone you trust - never keep ideas only to yourself, that's not a good idea.

Then, do some kind of experiment to validate your idea. Do a very early MVP, a "pretotype" - you might want to take a look at the Design Thinking, there's lot of material, but what you want to know is Pretotyping - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4AqxNekecY

It's tied to the "Fail Fast" mantra :) , and the Lean Startup by Eric Ries, or my favourites, Steve Blank and Alex Osterwalder - see this slideshow:

http://www.slideshare.net/Alex.Osterwalder/successful-entrep...

I'm doing something of the sort - a very early pretotype to have a starting point to talk with my potential customers and discover their REAL needs (aka what they WOULD pay money for :) ). Remember, "no plan survives contact with the enemy".