Tom:
The last thing is more something that I suppose is something we shouldn’t do. Obviously you have a lot of passion for something you’re getting into, but you you’ve got to be flexible, and you see quite a lot of people who have this blind determination. They’ve seen a path and they stick to it. That can be really dangerous when you’re starting a new business like this, or online business, especially.
Dan:
Absolutely, I think the big trap to fall into is you have an idea for a business. You see a problem and can’t but help workout how you solve it, and that’s fine, but what isn’t fine is to becoming whetted to that. The longer you go with that idea in your head the more whetted you become. Especially when people are thinking about starting a new business, it all comes into together.
You say,”Okay I’m going to quit my day job, and I’m going to do this new business…” Then everyday on their day jobs that have this vision of how this is going to work, and it’s the double edge sword of having that determination and that vision because once you get going you cannot be blind and determined to deliver a singular solution. You need to be determined to keep going, and you need to be determined when something doesn’t work to keep carrying on with it, but you can’t let that determination and tunnel vision over flow into actual product design. It’s very hard to separate those two things. Product has to stay flexible. The users are going to define you.
Tom:
They’ll shake you off the path your product takes… That’s definitely… The second they start using it they’ll tell you how they want to use it, and you’ll need to learn from that and adapt.
Dan:
Completely, you’ve got to go with that because the longer you hold on to that idea that you’ve had months thinking about on the train … If you find out that that’s not going to work, you’ve got to drop it.
Tom:
Step away from it.
Dan:
Absolutely. To be honest, I would be assuming that it’s not going to work from the start.
Tom:
Well quite all the time we are trying to break people’s assumptions, and make sure at any point that they not go right with testing or anything that’s wrong… And anything that does get though, brilliant because that’s a success.
Dan:
Completely. Everything … They’ve identified a problem and a solution, and the problem is something they’ve experienced maybe themselves. The solution is a guess… Assumption is a polite way to put it. But, it’s just a guess.
There’s nothing wrong with having the right ideas about the approach.
Tom:
Yeah.
Dan:
But if you’re going to stick to it, that determination is going to come around and bite you.
Tom:
I suppose that the way you movie forward is, someone with this vision and passion, that they are constantly coming up with new ideas for how to improve the service … Pointing them out, testing with users, and seeing which one the users actually want.
Dan:
Yeah.
Tom:
That’s the way the founder moves forward and develops the thing, but always listening to the customer and adapting to what they say.
Dan:
Completely. Save the determination for when you’re trying to convince the rest of us, you’ll need it then.
Cool, I suppose … Yeah … Just to summarize the top things that they need, they need: the vision, constant problem solving … They don’t need development skills, or customer skills.
Tom:
No.
Dan:
Don’t go on Treehouse or Lynda.com to learn how to code, you won’t have time. They need an insight into and industry. They need like an instinct around the problem. Whatever form that comes in, they need to be able to quickly make decisions and they need good determination (not bad determination).
There’s a quote, I think, (Insert quote name) “Be strong on vision but flexible on on details…”
Tom:
Yeah. That doesn’t ring a bell.
Dan:
If he didn’t say it quite like that then I’ve just said it like that, so please feel free to quote that.
But yeah, you’ve got to be flexible and actually listen to the customer when actually designing your solution. You can be determined about everything else in your startup but you can’t let it over flow and leave you blind to that.
Tom:
Yep. Cool. That about sums it up.
You can join us next time. In the mean time send over any questions, comments, whatever to us on our website. wearelighthouse.com.
Reach us on social media and that malarkey, but until next time, see you.
Dan:
See you there.