Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting - by Courtland Allen

One of the very first things you'll read when clicking on the "Start Here" button:
Questions to Ask Yourself Before Starting

In general I agree that you need to know yourself and I appreciate that this set of questions is a great starting point.

However, the problem is not always creating something from an idea after you have discovered yourself, the problem may well be getting people to use it and to see the value in that something.

The result of answering a list of questions is not simple, it's really messy. Sure you can, from that, get an idea of what you want to create or build, but just creating or building something based on this idea is a very small part of realising it into a business, so to speak.

Which is exactly what I've seen in my case, I created Mailphantom from an idea which I have discovered after answering some questions. It's done now, running, and people can use it. But people don't. Why? Because that is actually the hard part, and not only getting people to use what you have create, but getting paying customers.

What I created is considered very niche, not everyone sees what I have solved for myself as a problem for them, which is probably why I am having a hard time getting people to sign up.

So if you come up with your ideal something, which ticks all the boxes after answering all those questions you may be in the same position that I am in at the moment.

So, remember that I said that the result of answering is list of questions is messy? Sooner or later you will have to do some of the things from these questions which guided you to your idea. Let's take a few example:

• What am I bad at?
  Social Media, which is unavoidable when you want to bootstrap, you have to tap into your following etc etc. I do not have that, I am bad at that.

• What kinds of work has driven me insane in the past?
  Selling my idea to people, given that it is such a niche service.

I have not found a good approach in solving these problems, but some people would say you need a following, and again here is your next problem. This, at least for me, has not been that easy. And this is partly because the solution to this is locked up in one of the questions I am bad at and the other drives me crazy.

So I have to deal with both of these things, and here is what I think the post missed. It needs to acknowledge that you may have to deal with things from these questions in one way or another, and some may have a much bigger impact to taking an idea and making it succeed.

It is important to realise that even if you have a great idea, and you have been able to convert the idea into a product or service, you might need to still work with some of the things that you are bad at or that drives you crazy. Coming up with a unique solution to your problem is half the battle. It is the easy part.