Speaking with Justin Chen recently, Founder at PickFU I asked him what he thinks stops people from getting started on an idea. This can be any idea, a juice company, an iOS app, a hot sauce. He nailed it when he said ‘people overthink it’. (will release the full interview next week)
Overthinking an idea is paralysing. As Justin also said, you ‘go inside your head’ and I’m willing to bet, give yourself infinite excuses as to why it won’t work or why not to do it.
The simplest way to overcome this is to simply pick something and do it. But if you find that a bit confronting there are some steps you can work through.
An easy one is to think about the sheer number of people already doing it. According to indeed, a small business is created every 100 seconds. So by the time you finish reading this, someone has started a new business.
Validating your idea is another way to top up your courage. A simple market validation exercise can be to ask people, friends and family about it. Preferably try to find the more honest ones, or the ‘meaner’ ones, because they’ll tell you the truth.
Some people will roll their eyes here because they’ll say that friends and family will tell you anything is a good idea. In my experience this isn’t necessarily true, if you listen properly. If you get asked for hard details, like when will it be available or how much it will be, you might have something.
Alternatively, you can tell people about an idea you heard recently, as if it’s not your own and see what kind of reaction you get. For a detailed approach on how to get honest feedback, check out The Mom Test. It’s one of the single most important things to read to get the truth about your idea.
Proper Problem Establishment is also a useful exercise that doesn’t require anyone else. Try to define what problem it is you're solving, in writing. Don’t expect it to be perfect first time, in fact, expect it to evolve for some time. Try and keep it to 1-2 sentences. Having to define it succinctly will force you to flesh it out in your mind a bit more.
So either pick something and go for it, or start talking to people about it, write it down and remember that someone started a business seconds ago. So you can too.
Share this with someone who has been talking about an idea for ages.