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Your idea is not the most important part of your business

It’s wild out there, new business are being registered everyday and it feels like every possible idea you come up with has already been done.

A little bit like The Simpsons have already done everything, but for some reason even they keep coming with new unique ideas for new episodes.

The difference between us and The Simpsons is that they can’t do the same thing twice. We would not enjoy watching an episode when we already know the ending. This counts for all tv-shows but not for businesses.

People are often obsessed with their idea and they lose all motivation as soon as they see somebody else do it. Yes, first to market is an advantage but it’s nothing more than that. Henry Ford might have made the first car but Ford is not the only one selling cars anymore.

Your idea is not the most important part of your business. Obviously it matters but what matters the most is how deep you are dedicated to your idea.

Someone who isn’t a 100% dedicated to fighting global warming will never withstand all of the situations you have to come up with when starting a new startup.

It takes a lot of motivation and you need to be willing to do everything to reach your goal.

Exercise: Check in with yourself if your idea is the idea you are willing to fight for, try to imagine your friends and family telling you you should not do this. That it’s a waste of your time, energy, money and you will never succeed doing it. See if you feel like you’re still motivated to work on it after that.

The above is something that always works for me, obviously it's an extreme. How do you guys feel about this subject? Would love to hear your opinion.

  1. 3

    Before you become obsessed with your idea, make sure to validate it.

    No need fighting for a lost course.

    Thanks for your insight too.

    1. 2

      Exactly! You're welcome.

  2. 2

    Great advice! I think it's crucial to get feedback and keep improving. I do content marketing and their are 4 SaaS tools for optimizing content that are popular with content marketers. All 4 tools are successful as people have slightly different needs. I've switched tools several times as they role out new features. I think striving to be the most useful business in your space is more important than being the only option.

    1. 1

      Exactly this! Cool to see how you're using this to your advantage.

  3. 2

    You don't need to be the first one to market, but you do need to take into account that you have competition. It is important to show the value of your product and how it fits in with the other services out there.

  4. 2

    This comment was deleted 2 years ago.

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