What is the best piece of entrepreneurship advice you'd give a college graduate?

Raghav
7 replies

Replies

Daniel Kyne
I often hear people say that ideas are worthless and I think that's a reeeeeally misleading thing to tell college graduates. Not only because the "idea" (better viewed as the differential advantage) *is* in fact quite important, but because it leads first-time founders to believe that the starting point for a startup is to come up with an idea. In fact, rather than jumping right into execution on any old idea, they should spend as much time as possible trying to find the most burning problem that a niche, homogenous group of people experience. The combination of a burning problem and a solution with a differential advantage for a clear target customer segment is actually the best starting point an entrepreneur can possibly have. I personally advocate for the Customer Problem Stack Ranking approach from Stripe for finding these burning problems: https://www.opinionx.co/blog/cus...
Raghav
@daniel_kyne I 100% agree with you @daniel_kyne. Idea is the seed of any any plant which a founder aims to turn it into a tree. If the seed is not placed and nourished right it won't form a tree.
Michel Gagnon
@daniel_kyne Love our blog post! Very well explained, fun, concrete!
Raghav
@daniel_kyne wooo that bog is really informative. Thanks for sharing. I have forwarded it to my friends....
Michel Gagnon
Raghav, I tend to agree with @daniel_kyne here, but I would add that "doing" pays off overtime. In the end, you'll learn more by experimenting with various ideas than getting stuck for two years in analysis paralysis. I believe Tim Ferriss suggested that when you pick an idea/project, make sure that even if you fail, it's a project that will allow you to develop new skills.
Raghav
@michel_gagnon1 two years of analysis??????
Michel Gagnon
@raghav2 Sorry missed that one. I meant that many aspiring entrepreneurs spend too much time analyzing and thinking about their product idea and not doing enough.