If you’ve ever played video games, you have heard the word quest on a regular basis. You are often completing quests in order to save the princess or find the missing dragon. If you haven’t noticed, these adventures are not real.
The ‘easy’ startup is also a fantasy.
For some reason, there are many myths that are involved with running a startup. Who thinks these fantasies up and spreads them around like wildfire? Nobody knows. Often these rumors are started by those who have never experienced running their own business. These myths are also created by those who assume they know the answers to running a startup.
The truth is, many people have dreams of beginning a startup but are too afraid to move on it. Moving past your fear is the first step to beginning a startup.
Before you truly begin, you must learn the truth behind many of the myths that follow an ‘easy’ startup.
If your startup fails, you’ve failed.
For some reason, people associate failure with two ideas: that your product must not be worth purchasing or that you should quit altogether. This is absolutely incorrect.
Many successful startups have failed numerous times. If you need proof, look at one of the cofounders of Paypal – he launched 4 startups; 3 failed and one did “okay”.
Failure is more of a state of mind than anything else. Yes, it means that something needs to be changed because you did not reach success, but success is also not a journey. Many people need to fail to learn and grow, because failure teaches lessons.
If you’re facing a failure with your startup, find out why – what needs to be changed? What areas of your startup were successful? There are many questions you can ask yourself to turn these negative issues into positive opportunities.
Expectations: Expect to fail. Failure will allow you to alter your business in ways that will eventually benefit your company in the future and open the doors for success when you come out for round 2. If your startup is successful from the get go, work hard to ensure that it continues to thrive.
A new product will obviously mean immediate customers.
Unless you’re lucky enough to have a TV infomercial that advertises your product line, immediate customers is definitely a fantasy.
Just because you have created something great does not mean customers are going to flock to your business. In fact, many people may not even know – or care – about your business.
Whatever services or products you are trying to sell are irrelevant; even if it’s something that has never hit the market before. Unless it is an absolutely breakthrough in science, it needs to be properly marketed and given a purpose.
Customers need to be given a reason to care about your product and know that it serves a purpose for them that no other product can serve.
Expectations: You’re going to spend a lot of time marketing and advertising through social media and be reliant on word of mouth, including your own, to spread the news about your business. Even after you’ve spent hours and hours marketing, customers are still going to be far and few. It may be months before you begin to see a rise in customers, so don’t get discouraged.
Those assumptions are just the beginning of the myths to creating an ‘easy’ startup. The rest of the myths will be debunked in part two of this article.
