30 Failed Projects - How to know when a business idea is a good one?
I've always had entrepreneurial motivation which causes issues when it comes to working for someone else or following their path. There's something in my core that doesn't believe it's the right way for me and my life to work for someone else's dream.
During the pandemic, like most of us, I've had a lot of time to sit down and think about what I want to do next. I'm a web/mobile developer and so far I've built around 30 projects in my career that have failed to gain traction for many reasons. I still have the passion to build a product however the fear of failure is starting to hinder me from opening up the code editor again. I do market and competitor analysis before I open up the code editor :)
To fund projects I've built many products for clients as a freelancer and seeing their success over and over again combined with strange ideas getting huge funding rounds sometimes feels like a kick down there.
Competition doesn't scare me but is there a magic number of competitors that would cause you to avoid a sector?
I'm great at noticing opportunities with products or services where a new product would do well in but I've now found that I'm lacking the motivation because I'm 30 to 0 on success - Is this normal and how do you know when a business idea is a good one?
Did you really fail 30 times or just quit most of them? There is a difference. Maybe you still have the "build it, and they will come" mentality?
The harsh truth for us developers: sales is more important. You can sell crappy software, even one that does not exist yet. In the end, a business has to make money, that is the number one priority to survive. So do that, try to sell your MVP, get people to really commit money to something, not just some feedback "this is a great idea".
They all failed in one way or another. I'd say over 70% failed due to standard product factors (timing, execution, budget etc). The rest due to quitting after working non stop for a year or two. Each idea has been solid and built on solving a problem. One thing I haven't factored in is the magic of "luck".
I've had a similar experience, with varying degrees of traction and money, but none that took off in a way that is both scalable and profitable. The problems I've run into are:
Quitting an idea before it is fully realized. This is due to psychological factors, like fear of failure, or fear of having misunderstood the market, which is a point for relying on data, rather than motivation.
Customer apathy is the biggest competition, not incumbents or other entrepreneurs. Acute problems require you to find the customer at the exact time they are experiencing the pain, which is almost impossible, except for maybe SEO/SERP traffic. Non-acute problems are currently being solved by the customer in some sub-optimal way. So the challenge is to present them a story for why the momentary pain of dealing with you is nothing compared to the relief they will get from your solution. This is salesmanship.
Most ideas will get you traction with no revenue, or revenue with no profit. I've dealt with both scenarios. That's why it's important to figure out the business model, distribution, etc. ahead of time, to determine whether adoption would even entail profitable success.
Hope this helps and good luck in your journey!
With so many, you have the data to figure what's going on, if you sit and think thru each one, what are the themes?..
Themes in terms of product range from wherever I see an opportunity - I'm not sector-specific. Themes in terms of what's happening to each product are that they fail to gain traction. This is for a whole heap of reasons such as marketing agencies or influencers wanting more money, product timing, dark tactics by competition.
My entire career has been built in the digital space, moving from UI/UX design to programming in web and mobile. One bonus is I've never released a buggy product at launch or feature - So that's a win, or perhaps where I'm going wrong :)
It's an interesting question and perhaps the fear of failure started earlier than I thought.
And in a blameless humble manner, go over each one
There is no point to start the next one if you didn't yet learn the lessons from the last in a way that you can take action on for the next one
Having so much experience with so many projects, you surely have the answers you need in there
For me, the key question isn't "how many competitors are there?" but rather:
What you really need to know is: do people have a burning problem you can solve? Only if the problem is burning can you be confident they’d spend money to solve it. Find your target market and ask them what they’re biggest problems are. That might help you decide if your idea is good or not.
I think this could be one of the reasons for failure. Perhaps the problems aren't burning but smouldering. But in saying that I believe all problems are "smouldering". What I would classify as a burning problem is when I need food because I'm starving or need an ambulance because I'm having chest pains :)
How have you decided what to work on in the past. Is it just an idea you have or is it rooted in a problem. What have you done in the past to try and validate without building a full product.
Most of the time I would look through the web or social media for opportunities or issues with existing software that I could see a business flourishing. I then analyse the market whilst also doing negative and positive bias to disprove my idea. At this point, I begin to ask what potential customers would think without giving too much away.
For example, recently I spotted an opportunity to provide a bolt-on service to an existing service as the top market leader has become too big for smaller customers. There are others fighting in the space but I believe I can provide a unique selling point for my potential customers.
You could try the alternative as an experiment which is to shout it from the rooftops and see if you can get people to join a wait list.
Believe me, I've tried many things, not them all but enough to query does Google have a vendetta against any products I've launched.
I've had about 10 projects fail to be ranked by Google and Apple respectively. Not one was illegal or breached terms etc, they were great products. One notable example was an iOS app I built that competed with two others who were spending more per ad than I could. It was a different product, not a clone or copy and had a unique selling point. Apple intentionally pushed it down the search results and showed non-search items before mine. I literally had doctor apps, bubble level apps and flight training appearing before my app which was Pet Training. I complained about the search and they simply responded with the search "is fine" - This Apple tactic left a bit of a sore spot and trust issues with the big A.