Is Your Business Idea Worth Pursuing? Here’s How to Tell.

It’s hard enough to pluck up the courage to To start a business, But that’s just the beginning. Now you need to decide what business to start, and it’s not as simple as doing the obvious. For example, a friend of mine learned how to design websites while in college. When he decided to start a business, he thought, “I know how to design websites, I guess I’ll start a website design business.” Others have started certain types of businesses because of a hobby, because they heard it was a good way to make money, or because someone else dragged them into it.

Sometimes these decisions work, but often they don’t, and that’s a shame, because if you start a business, it’s likely to eat up several years of your life. Asking the following questions can help you make sure you are starting the right business for you:

Related: 5 Simple Ways to Identify Business Ideas That Could (Really) Change the World

Which is my goal?

Why do you want to start a business? It seems like a simple question, but if you ask different entrepreneurs you will get different answers, at least if you dig deep enough. Most entrepreneurs will say they want to make the world a better place or earn moneyBut many entrepreneurs use their businesses as a laboratory to experiment and learn, others are driven by a psychological need, and still others seek to please someone else. What motivates you?

In his book, The founder’s dilemmasNoam T. Wasserman, dean of Yeshiva University’s Sy Syms School of Business and a former professor of clinical entrepreneurship at the University of Southern California, divided entrepreneurial founders into two types based on their goals. A type of founder wants money, while the other wants control. It’s a useful exercise in figuring out what type you are and how that aligns with your other motivations.

Will you make a profit?

Too many entrepreneurs ask, “Will you make money?” and maybe they mean “profit” when they say “money”, but it’s good to be specific. Almost any business will make money, but a business cannot survive, prosper, or grow unless it makes a profit. Will your business idea make a profit? How much? How fast? If you can’t answer those questions, are you sure this is the right business for you?

Related: Is your business idea good? 5 indicators that it is not…

Is the demand growing?

One hundred years ago, almost every man in the United States owned at least one dress hat, if not several. Men wore them every time they went out, to work and on dates. Then all the hats disappeared, and today it would be hard to walk down a city street and see a single man wearing anything but a baseball cap, if he wears a hat at all. Imagine all the hat makers and hat sellers that went out of business when hats faded from common fashion, not to mention the suppliers of raw materials for making hats.

On the other hand, when the Internet began to grow in the late 1990s, many entrepreneurs recognized the fundamental change that this new technology would bring society and jumped on the bandwagon. Today, companies that are totally dependent on the Internet, such as Alphabet, Meta, and Amazon, are among the largest companies in the world.

How to know if the demand is growing? Fortunately, the Internet provides today’s founders with tools to answer this question in ways our entrepreneurial ancestors could not have imagined. “Using data from search queries, we can spot emerging trends in different markets to identify growing consumer needs and be able to meet them with a solution,” he says. Mulenga Agley, CEO of Growthcurve, whose company helps entrepreneurs identify and validate new business ideas before helping them scale. Agley says they use Glimpse to collect and analyze data from Google Trends, Google’s own search trend tracking service, to help clients “discover trends before they trend.” Agley continues: “With rapid advances in machine learning, this technology will become increasingly reliable and is one of the best ways to find new business ideas out there.”

Do I have what it takes?

you can have the grit and determination Being an entrepreneur, but do you have the right experience, skills, and drive for the specific business you’re thinking of starting?

“After my first ride, I reviewed the experience of running my first Bikewagon company to see what motivated me and how it added value,” he says. give him more, who is an investor in several companies and runs Venture Anyway, an intellectual group for entrepreneurs. “That experience helped me in my next business to know what problems I wanted to solve, for which I felt best suited.”

Some lessons only come with time, but a shortcut is to identify a business you want to run, then talk to other people who are running that type of business and ask them what it takes. The answers you get may guide you to a different opportunity, or may solidify your plan. Either way, you’re in a much better position.

Related: How to know when that business idea is good enough to pursue

Do I have the right equipment?

When a venture capitalist jump on an idea, one of the first questions they’ll ask is, “Who’s on your team and have they done this before?” A VC’s job is to maximize returns and minimize risk, and a team that has been there and done it has a good chance of being able to do it again.

Whether you plan to raise funds or not, it’s good to ask yourself, “Who is on my team? Is it the right team to bring my vision to life?” One red flag to watch out for is team members who have never started or run a business before, let alone the type of business you plan to start. Another danger sign is when a co-founder wants to be paid the kind of salary that he would receive in an established business. Yet another is the co-founder who doesn’t have immediately useful skills that are critical to the business.

There are too many red flags to list them all here, but if you consider just a few of them, you’ll be better off than the entrepreneur who doesn’t think twice and brings co-founders because they are friends or because they seem “smart”.

Launching a new business It’s hard work, but it can also be rewarding. To increase your chances, don’t hesitate to ask yourself the tough questions. The most difficult questions to answer can be the keys to your success.