The Surprising Thing You Don't Need To Start A Successful Company

Question number 1 is, what's the critical prerequisite to doing a successful startup? So you have to start, right? That's the first thing. And we laugh, but the reality is there are so many would-be entrepreneurs that kind of sit on the sidelines that have this kind of inkling, have this itch, but there are a number of reasons why they don't actually kind of make the leap and get started. One of the most common is that they don't think they have a good idea. They think their idea sucks. And they're right, because most startup ideas are actually not all that good, especially if you ask 5 people, you'll get 30 reasons as to why the idea is not good. But one thing I've learned across 20-plus years of startup experience is that often the best ideas you'll have, the one that actually ends up working out, will not be the idea you started with. And that idea will not come to you until after you start. So it's kind of a recursive thing. You can't sit on the sidelines waiting for the good idea to come to you that you kind of analyze and it's like, oh, now I have a really good idea, good enough to start. Because the actual good enough idea won't happen until after you start, so you have to start first. That's the prerequisite. I've seen successes, I've seen failures, but I've never heard a single entrepreneur state that they actually regret, even the ones that fail, that regret actually having taken the leap of faith and taken their shot. So my advice to you is if you have this inkling, you have access to resources you will likely not have later on. Right now, your risk tolerance is probably relatively high. And I can almost assure you, I'll buy you a beer if it turns out that you took my advice and started a company and then you regretted it. Odds are relatively low. You will not regret it. You should do it. So keep calm, build on.