How to make sure you are investing your time in the right idea?
Hello,
Stoics noticed people are often stingy with their money while they give their most valuable resource away without a second thought: their time. I think they are right with this observation. Your time, mind-space and attention are your most valuable and limited resources. Money can be earned, time can’t.
Many of us have ideas for products, projects or businesses. Yet, naturally, not every idea is suitable as a business. Investing time in an idea which has limited chances of success isn’t a smart decision. As Elon would say, you should “increase the odds of success”. One simple way is to weed out your ideas: make sure that whatever you are working on is worth your time.
Sounds good, but how? The keyword you’ve probably heard many times before is validating your idea. Only with an idea you have validated yourself(!), can you make sure to actually solve an issue which is suitable for your goal: building a business. I’ve struggled to get a grip on validating my ideas properly before. A more practical approach was to combine my second issue with idea validation: marketing.
If projects aren’t failing due to not validating it properly, it’s often caused by having no idea how to market. “Build it and they will come” simply doesn’t work anymore. Even as a developer you will need a solid idea of how to market your product / project. Here my validation approach comes in handy. During the validation process, you are automatically stumbling across people, communities, websites, blogs, etc. This is the perfect moment to take note, organize the information and learn about your potential customers’ needs at the same time. I’ve made this part of my business idea validation approach. Feel free to have a read and let me know what you are thinking! I’m looking forward to your feedback :)
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Cheers,
Peter