How do you turn an idea into a business?

Are you awash with ideas? Is your mind litterally swimming in a soup of opportunities & possibilities? Of apps & products & businesses & services & solutions to problems not yet solved?

Then you aren't alone. There are literally thousands of people just like you -they imagine a bigger, brighter, better world after they fix this 'thing' that needs to be fixed. If only someone would.

And yet the problem is still there -staring at you -waiting to be fixed. So why don't you fix it?

What is stopping you? Get out your pen & paper -right now. Put the problem down on paper. Write it out - who does this problem hinder? How could it be solved? Who has tried before? Why did they fail? How could it be done better? How could you reach them?

Don't write code or a business plan - describe the problem, the customer & how your solution helps them. Then find 10 people like the customer, (on the phone or over coffee) and ask them about this problem. Don't tell them about the solution- just discuss the problem. If it's a real problem that is solvable with your solution, you'll know soon enough.

What's stopping you?

Desperately Seeking .....a Co-Founder?

As an experienced ideas guy, finding a technical co-founder has been an interesting two year challenge, much more difficult than I would've expected, given my level of experience in past startups.

I've had these discussion with fellow startup exponents, guys like Troy Westley of CareMonkey, and its surprising how many of them have faced similar (though not the same) challenges.

I had started 8 projects in the past, usually with co-founders from within my networks. These were trusted people, with similar backgrounds, skills, or experiences to myself. But in each of these past projects, something was lacking within the partnerships. Something I couldn't quite put my finger on.

Each had been successful within their chosen field, all were 'hungry' success-orientated people, all had great presence and drive, and none was a stranger to hard work or taking a risk.

At the end of my last venture, I decided that I needed something more in a co-founder. At the beginning of my search (without a venture in mind), I wasn't sure quite what my criteria were, so I decided that the best path forward was to immerse myself within the startup community and allow the universe to bring the next venture to me (which didn't take long, by the way). I decided that the venture would determine the right person.

To say that the last few unsuccessful ventures had knocked me around, was an understatement. To add to that, life had dealt me quite a few personal 'hits' along the way; those that know me, also know the journey has been difficult. Not for one minute do I imagine that yours hasn't been also difficult; when you take a beating in one area of your life, that can also spill over into other areas of your life.

I had lost my edge, my mojo, the very thing which had kept me in the game, and kept me driving forward. If you've been' swinging for the fence' more than a couple of times, you'll understand what I mean. 

So my first challenge was to get into motion, even without a clear plan. Inertia is a force of nature that takes time to overcome, but once you are in motion, course correcting is much easier, due to the benefit of momentum.

During my search for 'the venture', I recognised that it wasn't the right venture, nor the right co-founder, that I was really looking for. I was in fact searching for the right 'me' that would naturally attract the sort of person that would be an obvious and natural fit for the 'me' that I needed to be; I was first looking for the right founder - the right 'me'.

Once I realised what I needed to change, and started putting those things into place, the search became far easier. I was more willing to be honest about my skills and my deficiencies, which made it easier to determine what skills and core strengths my counterpart would need to possess. Because it is the founders of a business that decide and set the culture.


It became evident that, as well as having the a required level of technical expertise, he had to be of a similar age, have been exposed to lots of life experience, have a great passion for life, and very keen sense of humour. On the technical side, I wanted some-one who was across many different types of technologies and methodologies, and was platform agnostic. And it wouldn't hurt if he enjoyed a sherbet when the time to down tools came along (all work & no play makes for a dull company).

The story has a happy ending - it turns out that the right person was some-one I had known for almost 5 years, over a regular social game of poker, who had previously lived about a mile from me, and had some deep & similar experiences in terms of life changes.

I'll introduce him to you shortly - he's a real fun guy too.

Winning isnt really winning- it's failing to fail.

When most people think of winning, they think of the skill of the sportsman, or team, in competition against their peers.
That level of skill is often physically matched, so the difference is shown in the mental preparation, or determination, a willingness to beat the other team, by doing those '1%-ers' required to gain an edge.
So often the success, or failure is measured in centimeters, or milliseconds, or some other very small margin of difference between the combatants.
However, in the startup game, it's something else entirely.

Here, your competition isn't really your competition. Your ability to do things 1% better may not be ever be recognised, valued or even make a difference. A coder who is 1% better than his peers, may not be as politically savvy, or as good at extolling his virtues. I'm not suggesting that the aggregate results of doing things better isn't required -it's just that it not the difference between failure and success in our world.
For example, from my experience in startups so far, a brilliant idea, a 'perfect pitch', a well-oiled team, a valid proof of concept, early market traction, or even that successful elusive 'series A' funding round, are no guarantees to ultimate market success.
Here, its something much less well defined; its more akin to the solo yatchsmen that circumnavigate the globe; they keep trying, again & again, despite weather, equipment failure, adversity, fatigue, capsizing etc., until they acheive their goal. You often hear hear of them succeeding after many attempts.

This type of winning could be more aptly described as 'failing to fail', and is much closer to what you & I do perhaps every day.
Leni Mayo (of 99 Designs fame) described it best when he recently floated the concept to me that that the normal entrepreneur (I avoid the word average here) has attempted 8 startups before they get something to fly. (He also joked to me that he lucked out on his 2nd.)
Unfortunately, too many give up before that stage.

So if the game isn't you against the world, what is it really? I believe that the real game is 'you against yourself'.

• How big is your vision?
• What lengths are you prepared to go to, in order to make it a reality? 
• How many stones are you prepared to turn over? 
• How uncomfortable are you willing to get? 
• How much more are prepared to stretch, to strive, to reach? 
• How hard will you push yourself? 
• What pain are you willing to endure in the pursuit of your vision?
• How many times will you get up after you get knocked-down?

Did you notice that none of these mention or even consider competition? No, the real game is 'you'.  If you doubt me still, let me ask you three final questions.

If not 'this', then what? 
If not 'now', then when? 
If not 'you', then who? 
So stay in the game, keep striving, keep reaching, keep failing, and most importantly, keep getting back up, until you fail at failing.  
Then everyone can call you an 'overnight success'.

What did you learn from your last startup?

If you want to work out what you have learned from each of your startups, you should first review in summary what you did & didn't do, so that you can extract the lessons from each of them. By the way, if you don't yet have a journal, get one.
Let's assume that for every project of yours that didn't work, it is automatically assumed that you didn't know enough. The same is equally true of all my projects. But that in itself isn't enough.

You can start to determine what you experienced, and therefore what you learned, by outlining the external factors & events around each of your startups, such as

• What stage did it get to?
• Who was involved and in what roles?
• What were their skills? their motivations?
• Who did you engage to support the project?
• What research did you undertake?
• Did you have a plan? If so, did it guide you or confine you?
• How flexible were you in deviating from the plan?

These will lead you to the important factors, like:

• Why it didn't work,
• What you still have to learn,
• What you did learn, and
• What can you do differently next time.

Next, just as I have done, list in any order you like, every 'startup' that you've worked on. For the sake of the exercise, you can include those projects 'owned' by others.
We'll come back to the learning in part 2.

Is pride your biggest failing?

Are you too proud (or ashamed) to admit your startup failures ?

Startups are often touted as failing through poor uptake, weak marketing, lack of resources or money, bad management, poor product/market fit, bad design, competition, wrong co-founders, poor teams/code/design etc.

But they aren't the real reasons -they are the outcomes of the real reasons. If you think about most startups, they come into being from the original vision of one person. In your startup, that's probably you.
Lets look carefully at why startups really fail:-

• You didn't know enough - which meant that you didn't do the either right things or at the right times, or both.
• You did know, which meant you made a conscious decision of actions, which ultimately lead to failure.
• There was an unexpected, unlikely or improbable event, or set of events, that occurred, from which you could not salvage or recover from.

Experience can take many forms, but the best of these is honest (though not self-critical) self-evaluation, which does require you to be honest with yourself. Your ability to see, to anticipate, to use good judgement and therefore to act, are often the best predicators of success. Sometimes that may require a bit of experience, being open to synchronicity, and the occasional dose of luck.

So startup success is often more about the clarity of your vision, than any other single factor, because everything comes from that.

Not for a moment am I advocating for not taking a risk with your next big idea, just because the last one didn't work. Far from it.

I'm also not suggesting that you should beat yourself up, or take the blame for everything -just that you accept responsibility for what happened.

If you have had startups that failed in the past, first identify the outcomes as to why they failed, and then honestly work back to the real reasons.

Only then can you truly embrace what it is that you must become, in order to get to where you want to go. That should give you, and every other member of your 'tribe', some insight into what you, or they, have to do next time. And then tell the world.

You paid the price, so learn what it is that you learned, and then share what you learned. In doing so, you will rid yourself of the pride that is holding you back.

Is distance the answer to pain?

Difficulty and challenge are often the cause of people distancing them selves from others, in an effort to either avoid confronting, or seeking perspective from the problem.

Being too close to a problem causes us to seek perspective, which distance can do. The problem with this approach, is that if your vision is clouded, you can move away too far from the problem to see it clearly, and therefore come to a solution, or even an acceptance that it just 'is'.

That perspective that we seek can also be found another way -through the eyes and wisdom of another.

Which requires 3 things.

The first is trust. Trust that another has your best interests at heart, and knows you well enough to guide you, using your highest self, to an answer that you are seeking.

The second is wisdom. Without themselves having experienced that which you are afflicted, and therefore understanding all the elements of the journey you are to face, what you may end up with is some-one's opinion. The difference between the 2 - like sour milk - isnt often readily obvious. Its only after you've tasted the outcome, that it is readily discernable. And then you wished you hadn't.

The answer may therefore be in a completely opposite approach to moving away from something. The answer is in the 3rd all-encompassing element - connection.

Are you a failure?

To be a 'failure' in the traditional sense requires one of 2 alternatives;-

That you never tried anything, and squandered your potential, or
That you tried something and it didn’t become what some-one else expected it to become.
In my eyes, only one of those is a failure.

Would you really want to spend your last years regretting never having really tried? That despite being truly capable (and that opportunity was possible at your point in time & space) not that you tried and failed again & again, but that you never attempted in the first place. I think that would be the cruelest pain of all.

Not for me, that life of regret, of longing, of 'unrequited strove'; my path lies along that of striving, of endeavour and of enterprise. As to the 'why', I'll shall save that for another section and perhaps a book or two.

However, in being bold, the world in general will not treat you kindly - you must also learn to accept and overcome criticism, and by doing so, learn the qualities of resilience and fortitude. For you will be unappreciated, misunderstood and possibly even derided by the masses.

But the rewards, internal & external, of trying and perhaps never succeeding, are still far greater than you can imagine. For now, I'll give you one - the respect of your peers. For the rest, you'll have to subscribe to my musings.

What can you do for me?

I love a good meetup, almost as much as I love a good meeting (no, really).

I noticed something interesting recently about the welcome messages of people who join meetup groups.

They almost always seem to read like this "Great that you joined our group, [your name]. Looking forward to/glad I could meet at [insert group name here]. If I can be any assistance with [the product I'm selling], please contact me via [my preferred method]. I'd love to catch up at the next [insert group again] so we can talk about [the product I'm trying to sell to you]."

What is wrong with this picture?

It ignore the needs of the person as to why they joined the group, or why they might possibly attend again.

Further, it falls short of asking the (or any other potential participant) what they might hope to join for, whether the group met their needs, and what might possibly be done for them in the future to achieve those aims.

So if you are running (or considering starting or taking over) a group, have you asked yourself why less than 5% of your actual members turn up, or why most never come back? I bet the answers (if you are open to them) might surprise you.

Take care of the needs of the audience first, and your volumes will be well catered for.

What's in a Corporate profile?

Its true for many of us in 'StartUpLand' (is that a future world at DisneyLand), 'Runway' (startup jargon) is something we often need. If you are in 'Discovery' (more startup jargon), and don't yet have funding, backing or angels in your outfield, you may need to swallow your pride and take on some consulting, a contract or a (semi-)permanent position. Which presents a problem....
I've noticed that in 'Corporate Land', there are some things that you just can't put on your Linked In profile. No, I'm not talking about your private life, or those things that people might consider quirky.
It's usually things that might reflect on your personality, or demonstrate your individuality. Like the time you were involved in a political campaign or another cause close to your heart.
A recruiter friend recommended that I remove anything contentious from my profile that might be cause to discount me from a role. Which I now think is 'tosh'.
You see, when employers interview you for a role, they not only get to see your skills, experience & capacities, but they also get to see your personality, presence and potentials. In short they get to experience the 'you that you are now', which came to be as result of where you came from.
The employment market is a crowded place, and if you want to compete, you want to stand out. If you are a "StartUpGuy' like me, your best opportunity come from highlighting your differential strengths, not trying to blend in (assuming that you have the requisite 'entry level' skils). If I had to guess about you, things like 'Drive', 'Perseverance' and 'Resilience' are key attributes
So in order for them to truly understand what motivates you, what drives you, and therefore how to bring out your best, I believe that those employers need to see where your 'power' really comes from. So demonstrate that.
For example, how can an organisation truly appreciate characteristics like your resilience & tenacity (something that most people say they have) unless you can demonstrate how you acquired these capacities?
And here is the dichotomy, in demonstrating these qualities, to the un-informed, it makes you appear weak, a failure, perhaps even a 'wannabe'? Perhaps that’s because of the requirements of in a corporation; there you are a 'unit of production' in the immediate, ultimate and only requirement - the production of profit.
But not in "StartUpLand' - here we celebrate your failures, encourage them even - because we know that behind every failure, every mistake, every difficulty previously encountered, is the seed of a solution to a future obstacle, barrier or roadblock before its even arrived at.
In the Startup Community, we welcome, desire, require, and in fact celebrate, your past failures. Why? Because for us, its about creating, building or shaping something larger than ourselves. Profit is the result, not the purpose, of our success in the pursuit of that larger vision.
So, Fail Fast and Fail Often, so that we can get on with the business of learning what it is that we are supposed to learn in the process.
PS If you want to see a list of my failures, they are up on my site as of today.

Are you Crazy?

Are you being told by enough people that:-

• "you are crazy"?
• your idea "can't work, and even if it could, you couldn't do it"?
• your idea is "just another in a long list of hair-brained ideas"?
• Or "you are such a dreamer. Why don't you just get a real job, and stop dreaming"?

If you haven't heard these things at least 10 times in the last 12 months, perhaps you are traveling in the right circles, where ideas are encouraged. Or perhaps you've the good sense to keep your mouth shut around others who are caught up in more 'real' affairs?

If these resonate with you, perhaps you've taken the first step to joining a new 'tribe' - where ideas are not only welcome, but encouraged.

This tribe is also welcoming of the type of person that espouses new ideas, and new ways of thinking and solving problems.

"What tribe is that?", you ask? (I'll give you a clue about what it's not -politics)

It's the tribe that thinks that anything is possible, where the only limits you impose are your own, and pasts failures are celebrated. In days of old, this tribe would've been composed of 'Renaissance' men & women, such as thinkers, musicians, poets, craftsmen, inventors, and artisans.

Now it's the the domain of the start-up entrepreneur, the tech developer, the design guru or innovative marketer -people that believe that they can change the world, or their little piece of it, for the better. Often the primary motivator isn't money (though its a nice by-product).

These people may have both depth & breadth of knowledge & experience, (as with the Renaissance men of old) but not neccessarily.

However, this tribe cannot be joined by paying a monetary fee; membership dues are paid with something else -let's see if you can guess.

As George Bernard Shaw said long ago, "Reasonable people adapt themselves to the world. Unreasonable people attempt to adapt the world to themselves. All progress, therefore, depends on unreasonable people."

Do you know what the price of admittance is yet?

Samson didn't know this, but Delilah did.

Do you know your biggest weakness? Did you also know that its also the source of your greatest power and strength.
For Samson, it was his hair (or more likely the feeling of power that he got from looking good). When Delilah removed his hair, he lost his mojo, his self -belief and his strength and power as a result. His belief of himself as a powerful man was so intertwined with his self-image, that when he lost his hair, his strength went with it.
I wonder whether had some-one had complemented him & handed him a mirror to admire his new look, whether he might have felt so despondent. Besides, who really looks good with a mullet anyway? (Except perhaps Billy Ray Cyrus).
So what is your biggest weakness? Is it your family?

• A parent who never really encourages your potential?
• A sick child?
• A lacklustre career?
• A lack of money to start that 'dream project'?
• Or a spouse (or sibling or boss) who just doesn't 'get' you?

Do you realise that these are exactly the things that are your most powerful motivators?
Could it be that the very things that you think are holding you back, are in fact the very source of a deep well-spring of powerful motivation?
The difference is only in how you think about it, isn't it?

Who is That StartUp Guy?

"ThatStartUpGuy.com.au" is a site for those with a great idea, who wonder what to do next.

Startups are in my blood -I've been an 'ideas guy' since as long as I can remember, but it took some time to find my path - is 27 years too long?

My goal is to help you, by guiding you through the steps, and past the challenges and pitfalls, to turn that 'Great Idea' into reality, whether it's a business, a product, an app or just finding an answer to a common problem. 

At the same time, I'll share with you my own journey, from which you might just draw valuable lessons of your own. Connect via Social Media, and share stories of your own journey.

Shortly, you can subscribe to our newsletter to receive a free gift of one of my upcoming books on startups or mobile ideas. (we will never send spam to your e-mail address or sell your information to any other party).

I've already started sharing other articles about the challenges and joys of being "That StartUp Guy".  Being an entrepreneur can be a lonely journey, but it doesn't have to be.

And if you are in need of some help with a great idea, contact me and lets get a conversation started.