We have talked in this column before about how entrepreneurs tend to be very confident people who are enamoured of their ideas. In one sense, it is a good thing, because it helps them convince customers, investors, and the world at large to buy into their idea and give their young startups business or money. But it is this self-belief that also stops them from asking themselves some very important questions about the idea behind their startup. “Am I the first one to come up with this idea? Has anyone else already thought of it before?” Because, to them, the concept that someone else may have also had the same idea before they did is unthinkable, they never get to finding out.
If they do ask themselves these questions, they will almost always find that someone else has indeed already thought of the idea. If no one has, then the idea is either especially outrageous, or genius. Or both. In which case, congratulate yourself. But if someone has already thought of the idea, there are a few things that the entrepreneur can do next, which will help them fine-tune their idea and make it likelier to succeed.
One, maybe the previous time the idea was implemented, the time was just not right. A great idea is never a sure-fire assurance for success. There are many factors of time and place that matter. Business history is littered with geniuses who were before their time. Thomas Parker in the United Kingdom and Andreas Flocken in Germany had manufactured electric cars in the late 19th Century. Yet their time and place meant that they could not be the Elon Musks of their generation. K Vaitheeswaran and friends started fabmart.com , which later by way of fabmall.com became Indiaplaza, way back in 1999, a decade-and-a-half too early to catch the e-commerce wave that hit Indian markets. Given such instances, the entrepreneur needs to ask themselves if the right time for their idea is now. What they need to think of are various extraneous factors that may help or harm their business.
Two, the idea might have been implemented in a market that is completely different. In which case, the entrepreneur gets an excellent case study from which they can glean enough insights into what about the idea needs to be adapted for their market conditions. Three, those who had the idea may have given up early in the game for various reasons. It may be a good idea to figure out why, and see if those reasons still hold true.
And fourth — and most importantly, because this is often the hardest to swallow for the entrepreneur who is extremely fond of their idea — the history of the idea might show that it is doomed to fail. Instead of trying the same idea one more time, it is better to try and understand why it failed. After all, it is much cheaper and safer to learn from somebody else’s mistakes than one’s own.
