Money Model: A new start up model I thought up 2 min ago

This post is for anyone who has spent more than 6 months in the last three years working on an idea that made them less than $1,000, yet had the intention of that idea becoming a large business (not just a hobby). When you consider your next business project, follow these steps and I think your chances of success will be 10x higher.

Step 1: Find a problem to solve that does at least one of the following:

• Saves someone over 10 hours per month
• Saves someone over $100 per month
• Makes someone over $100 per month

(You do this by talking to real people who have real problems. If you listen, people love to bitch and complain about their problems. They will tell you what is wasting their time and what is expensive. My mom does this. My sister does this. My friends do this. People do this.).

(Not all problems will fall into these categories. I'm sure some people reading this have made millions on other types of ideas. That's fine. I like these ideas because they are soooo easy to sell. And one day soon you will be on a phone call selling someone. If your product is going to save the person on the line a lot of money and time, it's cake - my grandmother could make that sale. If it's not, you better be a slick salesmen - I'm not).

Step 2: Create a solution in the following two ways

1. Use existing technology to build the solution (i.e. a spreadsheet)

2. For ideas needing a custom solution, pay someone else to build the MVP. Don't pull out your laptop, pull out your checkbook. Even if you are an engineer. People undervalue their time. Don't build an idea just because you can. If the idea is not good enough to pay someone else, don't build it yourself. This is a gut check. It's a test. If you don't have money, do client work to make money to pay someone else to build this. I'm serious.

Step 3:

Sell at least $1000 of your product/service using the output of step 2. If you cannot do that, go back to step 1

Step 4: Now think about spending your own time on development. Now try to scale your solution.

(Imagine I gave you a product right now that passed step 1, step 2, and step 3. That's where you want to be. You have a product that saves people a shit ton of time and money (easy to sell). You haven't wasted 4 months of your own time perfecting every button because you are a perfectionist developer. And you have done 1k in sales.)

This model is a work in progress. Interested to know what you all think. Solve a real problem.