People often say that ideas are worthless. I like to think that they are not inherently worthless. They are just worthless without any execution.
Your startup will not succeed with just a good idea and good execution alone. Even with the best execution, it’s worthless without traction. If no one ever sees your product, your startup can have the best execution and it will still fail.
Good traction is worthless without generating revenue. Getting a free user to convert to a paying customer takes work. You can’t pay the bills without any paying customers.
If your revenue is less than the operating costs required to run the startup, the business is not sustainable. Generating revenue is worthless if you do not turn over any profit.
Building a startup is hard work. Founders need to have both resilience and drive. Resilience to prevent getting pushed back and drive to push forward through the tough times.
Published on 6 Jan 2014 by Stanley Tan