Comment by Joel_Mckay
8 hours ago
It takes understanding your own impulses and cognitive biases.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases
Most people start a small business for tax reasons, and the few lucky loud clowns claiming hyper-scaling BS is sustainable simply disappear within 5 years.
Best advice, answer the simple question "will random people buy this when no one is looking?"... if you have to explain/sell a product/service more than 5 seconds, than that business model likely isn't sustainable.
I also see a lot of smart folks that think they will get paid for excuses... only lawyers, PR, and politicians are in that business. =3
> Best advice, answer the simple question "will random people buy this when no one is looking?"... if you have to explain/sell a product/service more than 5 seconds, than that business model likely isn't sustainable.
For B2c, maybe. B2B is very different - they aren't going to make up their mind in 5 seconds and you aren't going to have a product that can be explained in 5s.
>B2B is very different - they aren't going to make up their mind in 5 seconds
If not, than one is explaining/selling again, and you will only ever have 2.7%*(time/sales_pitch_time) customers. Letting client/customers dictate the terms of a product/service often will just turn your business into a staffing agency.
B2B is actually more risk, as any deal exceeding 12% of revenue sets a timer on how long your business will likely survive. Some unlucky folks also end up acting as a product warehouse for clients, contract labor, or a scapegoat for client internal strategic mistakes.
If people can't summarize what they do in 1 sentence, than they likely have a fuzzy definition for a business project goal. For example, people that use more than 4 conditional statements (if/but/when etc.) to describe something, than I have observed they often last less than 3 years regardless of cash burn rates. =3
> If people can't summarize what they do in 1 sentence, than they likely have a fuzzy definition for a business project goal.
I broadly agree with your point, but disagree with this sentence. IME a 1-sentence business goal is almost certainly too fuzzy to be useful. There's nothing actionable about "We help you survive audits and readiness for regulation $FOO", which is frequently the business goal.