Recent comments neilc received
There's something to be said for "scratching your own itch", too... Getting opinionated and building something that YOU want to have and then find others like yourself... Though I suppose validation and understanding the market is still a good idea.
Sometimes I think that if you build the product that those 10-15 people want, you get a mishmash product that they'd all use... grudgingly.
Get opinionated and build a product that 5 of them would LOVE and 10 of them would DESPISE... Then you're on to something.
I find it valuable to separate service based businesses into services requiring “selling of your time“ (legal services, programming positions etc.) and more scalable service businesses (and suddenly I cannot think of any better examples than a Laundromat;), but which make a goal of less work and more money feel a little more achievable.
Like what? It sounds like you've got an interest in mobile and consumer, so give me a shout if you feel like discussing.
Well, no harm in blogging about it now. What's the idea?!
I think there are some businesses that require vast amounts of capital to get off the ground and others that you can bootstrap on a few extra bucks a month in hosting fees.
Either way I think it's very important to validate your business idea as far as possible before raising outside funding. Once you do get funding, it becomes much more time, energy and money consuming to switch to another business model.
I don't think it's wrong to switch - many businesses start as one thing and learn from their customers they should be doing another thing. Just do it while you're nimble.
Mark.
