First time founders: what was your biggest problem getting started?

I'm not a first-time founder, but I thought that I'd share.

Like you (I think, and forgive me if I'm off the mark), I work with lots of first-time founders (at the small incubator I run in the middle of Maine).

I see a lot of reasons why first-time founders don't get started, but there are absolutely some concerns I hear a lot that are keeping them stuck, like …

• Getting “distracted” / focusing on the wrong things. There’s so much advice out there that it’s hard to know whether or not you’re going down the wrong path.
• Self-doubt. Is this even possible at their age, education level, or past experiences?
• Little time and feeling overwhelmed. Starting a business is overwhelming, and they have so much going on already, including a full-time job.
• No clear next step. With a lack of obvious, go-to resources for founders who are just starting out, they don’t know who to turn to for guidance at this early stage.

I think that small steps lead to big things, and I find that laying out some initial steps of defining an initial potential customer and value proposition in order to begin talking to potential customers is often enough to get first-time founders started.