The only thing that matters for founder
Shanghai is suffering the most muggy summer as I know. too busy for brushing off sweat to be a daily writing blogger:)
I am an idea creator. and I want to turn my ideas into real valuable business. then I try to be an entrepreneur. so far, I am not a successful entrepreneur. why can't I succeed like others? I often ask myself this question. I know there are too many reasons. but I only want to know the most critical reason. in the end, I think I get the answer.
In my opinion, normally there are 3 core elements for a founder to startup business: idea, co-founder and capital. if you ask people who are ready to startup themselves business which element is most important, many will say capital. and if you ask VCs same question, they will say team (co-founder and some key employees). but I have a third answer: idea/co-founder fit!
My first try to be an entrepreneur is the website of TitanOasis.com. in china, it's very hard for university graduates to find a suitable career. conversely, many companies are crying for talent shortage. so I want to borrow experience from open innovation business model like Innocentive.com to build a platform for college students to be the companies' virtual employees. as a result, students can be precisely matched with suitable job and suitable company when they graduate. I don't think this idea is no market value. but until now, I fail in effectively linking company with college students. I think the reason is I am lack of co-founder who has network resources in college and business world. how to attract such powerful co-founder? that's the idea! only people really understand your idea's value and potential can be a good co-founder. once the idea/co-founder fit is finished, a competitive team is formed. it's becoming easy to convince VCs. so the first step to success is to achieve idea/co-founder fit.
My following experience will reveal another advantage of idea/co-founder fit. recently I found a good business chance in handheld sector. but I have no any skill on embed system design and development. what can I do? there are 2 ways I can choose: find technology co-founder or outsourcing the development work. the first way can save lots of startup capital and make a good looking team. relatively, the second choice will cost me lots of money and bear other risks. of course I would like to choose the first way. I tried to persuade my friends and other technologists I met on BBS forum, but No one can really understand the potential business chance (although I hide the most secret part of my business model, I think the revealed information is enough to make a judgment). so I have to take the second way. I failed in idea/co-founder fit.
Maybe it's the special cases in china because china has far worse entrepreneurship environment than western countries. however, I think idea/co-founder fit is the most important thing for me! how do you think?