Page 47 - The 7 Day Startup: You Don’t Learn Until You Launch - PDFDrive.com

If you don’t like what you see, then it’s not a good business idea for you. Other
than that, don’t worry about passion.

2. Product/founder fit

People talk a lot about product/market fit, but for bootstrappers the idea of
product/founder fit is just as important. In my first agency, I was a poor match. I
knew that, but I pushed on anyway.

Some people are perfectly matched with their companies and some people
aren’t. It’s worth thinking about what skills you have, what are you known for,
and where you can provide the most value.

If that doesn’t line up with your business idea, then it’s going to be a long, hard
struggle.

3. Scalable business model

For listed companies, if profits unexpectedly go up, the stock explodes. If they
unexpectedly fall, the stock crashes. This is because businesses rarely stagnate.
It’s considered unusual if a business is neither growing or contracting.

Yet freelancers and small business people accept a business that isn’t growing.
They accept that the business barely generates a wage for the founder.

Startup founders should have the ambition to grow their business into a larger
company. If you don’t have that ambition, what you are creating is not a startup.

Some businesses lend themselves to business models that have growth in their
DNA. A software as a service (SaaS) company would expect to bring in more
recurring revenue each month. A local store or a franchise, however, will have
fairly static (albeit cyclical) profits.

Your idea is not a solid startup idea if you don’t have the capacity to make use of
a profitable, growing business model.