Life experiences influence our work creations

Simplifying things often gives a different perspective. When I need to make a decision or create an opinion, I tend to simplify the matter. Clearing out all the clutter brings out purity.

There is this eternal subject of startup success. Simplifying this subject by looking at startup founders as individuals and their life stories, I have distinguished four situations that spark creation of new digital products from an individual perspective.

Situation #1: Digital products built on personal lifestyle needs.

Let’s say your regular day starts with drinking coffee at one of your favorite coffee shops; you always use loyalty cards and enjoy getting a free coffee every now and then even though it does not influence your budget; you build a loyalty card app for coffee shops and start selling locally to the coffee shop owners you already know; things go viral and you got yourself a solid business; These situations are so rare I doubt there is even one percent success rate, but it sounds great, doesn’t it? The main problem here is that you are most probably not utilizing your knowledge, experience and network, but rather going on a hunch without any market research, proof of concept, evidence of a business need and just think of how great that would be from your perspective. I’ve seen so many startups fail because they thought building something they found “awesome” would be a winning business. To elaborate further, I will move onto the second situation.

Situation #2: Digital products built on personal, yet, professional business needs.

Let’s say you are an accountant and you are recognizing the one thing none of the accounting softwares out there provide; you realize the opportunity of a plugin or independent Web/Mobile solution that would be so useful that an accountant would be a total amateur not to buy it; you have it built and start selling through your networks and it just goes through the roof; The key difference between the first and second category is that you are building a business in the environment and industry you are comfortable in. You have the knowledge of the industry and know how things work, you know what the software must do based on your experience, you know that no one else has done it as you are using accounting softwares all the…

Related posts:

The opportunity to seize this vast market of unconnected users is here and it is WIDE open. Around 80% of all internet users live in emerging markets (Korea, Brazil, Philippines, etc.). More than 90%…

A few months ago I was rear-ended at a stoplight. The police were called and a report was filed. Later, I learned that the driver who caused the accident was not listed on the insurance policy, but…

al menos no es lluvia ácida. al menos no es metáfora. al menos te quita la mugre. ¿habías estado en una llovizna con relámpagos? la llovizna te quita la mugre, pero hace que salgan las medusas y la…