Loic’s winning startup tips list
Most people now know Loic Lemeur, the famous French guy behind Seesmic. He recently posted a “to do” list in order to successfully start a company. His list goes as follows:
- Don’t wait for a revolutionary idea. It will never happen. Just focus on a simple, exciting, empty space and execute as fast as possible.
- Share your idea. The more you share, the more you get advice and the more you learn. Meet and talk to your competitors.
- Build a community. Use blogging and social software to make sure people hear about you.
- Listen to your community. Answer questions and build your product with their feedback.
- Gather a great team. Select those with very different skills from you. Look for people who are better than you.
- Be the first to recognize a problem. Everyone makes mistakes. Address the issue in public, learn about and correct it.
- Don’t spend time on market research.Launch test versions as early as possible. Keep improving the product in the open.
- Don’t obsess over spreadsheet business plans.They are not going to turn out as you predict, in any case.
- Don’t plan a big marketing effort.It’s much more important and powerful that your community loves the product.
- Don’t focus on getting rich. Focus on your users. Money is a consequence of success, not a goal.
There’s only one point that I don’t really agree on (point 7 – Don’t spend time on market research). I don’t know about you but even if you have a niche, you still need to properly analyse it. If I focus “ant eating lovers who have 5 kids and have dyed pink hair”, then that’s a really small market and whatever I do, I won’t make any money. Reaching these people alone will be pretty hard so keeping them as loyal customer is probably next to impossible.
So what do you think about this list? Which point do you think is the most important? I found from my current startup that #5 is really important. Without a great team, you won’t go very far…!
I think the point is that you’ll get a much better idea of the market by actually putting something out there and seeing what gets used than you will from some pencil-pusher analyst with a calculator.
I think there are many startups who do everything in secret (but still advertise their secretness like crazy) who could learn a thing or two from this list.
I agree with what you’re saying as long as you target the “commoners”. And that’s what you should be doing. If it’s bad, people won’t use it and if it’s good, people will use it.
But if you want to target a specific group (and most businesses have to do this these days), I think you need to properly size your market first. You might not need to hire someone who will calculate it using a scientific method, but you have to be able to get a “feel”. If you sell ergonomic shoes for women over 7 feet tall who suffer back pain then you ought to know that there are only 3 women in North America who fit this description but strangely enough, 10% of Turkish women are over 7 feet tall (I’m obviously making this up). I think anyone can do that kind of high level market research using Google and various government statistics. In this case, if you plan to sell your shoes in Canada and USA, chances are you won’t be making a lot of money because your niche isn’t actually one – it’s inexistent. If you sell your shoes in Turkey then you get 10% of the market, which is pretty good.
People might love your product but if you have only 3 customers, chances are you won’t be profitable. I don’t know, perhaps I’m wrong (or I see market research differently) but I wouldn’t jump in any market without researching it first. Finding an idea and finding a business opportunity are different things, no?