David Cummings on Startups

Where to Start with a Raw Idea

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David Cummings

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Last week I talked to a couple of good guys that had a raw startup idea who were looking for feedback. Of course, I had them go through the five startup questions in advance but the idea was at such an early stage the responses weren’t meaningful. There was also the challenge that they didn’t have enough startup background and context to provide meaningful answers. They tried but it still wasn’t good.

Here’s what I’d recommend doing when starting out with a raw idea and no background in startups:

  • Spend three hours reading Mark Suster’s posts on Startup Advice
  • Spend an hour making a competitive matrix Google Spreadsheet listing out what search terms you Googled, the company name, company website address, company tag line, brief company description, and a high/medium/low rating of how close to a competitor they are
  • Spend an hour writing full answers to the Shotput Ventures application questions in a Google Doc

I’m confident that going through this process will help set the foundation for more effective research and a more constructive conversations when talking through a raw startup idea.

What else? What would you add to the list?

Comments

7 responses to “Where to Start with a Raw Idea”

  1. Adam Wexler Avatar
    Adam Wexler

    it sounds like the first thing you said may be as important as anything. value anybody who is willing to hear you out. you don’t always get that opportunity…but describe your idea in different ways to different people. see what elements strike a cord, and learn from every opportunity…

    backing up a step, i think guy kawasaki is a great place to start for those looking to get inspired.

    moving forward a step, i think the archives of http://AskTheVC.com is one of the best resources online for answering all kinds of questions that startups face as they progress along their journey.

    -adam

    Reply
    1. davidcummings Avatar
      davidcummings

      Thanks Adam for the great link.

      Reply
  2. Charles Brian Quinn Avatar
    Charles Brian Quinn

    Fantastic advice, David.

    Perfect fodder for all our incoming leads to highgroove.com that have an idea (!) and not much else.

    We have a document called our “10 Questions” that attempts to get incoming leads to start thinking about things like: “what are you improving on that’s currently out there” which is a different question than: “who are your competitors?” The wrong answer is: “no one!”

    Another resource I like, which might be more geared toward the “Build a Company” side as opposed to the “Build the Idea”, is doing the 17-steps of the Zag by Marty Neumeier.

    Reply
    1. davidcummings Avatar
      davidcummings

      Thanks Charles. I bet you see a bunch of raw ideas.

      Reply
  3. Adam Avatar
    Adam

    Spend 15 minutes a day reading Hacker News. Ditto on Ask the VC. Also, read “Founders at Work.”.

    Reply
  4. davidcummings Avatar
    davidcummings

    Another tactic to search for competitors is to go to Google and do related: and the domain name of a known competitor as one word with no spaces (e.g. Google related:cnn.com) as Google will return the perceived competitors.

    Reply
  5. When Raising Money Makes Sense « B2B Tech Entrepreneur – David Cummings

    […] Money Makes Sense by davidcummings on May 8, 2010 After looking at yesterday’s post on Where to Start with a Raw Idea, I realized that the link to startup advice and the link to the VC site in the comments might […]

    Reply

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