I was recently chatting with a founder whose first company didn’t work out, and now he wants to start another new company.
In terms of deciding what to build next, my recommendation to him was: forget about your personal passion and optimize around the market this time. Why?
- Technically, the founder didn’t prove his ability to build something that not only he, but many other people, also wanted or needed
- With the unproven ability to spot a big market problem, if the founder again builds something he needs or wants but there’s not enough market demand, and therefore fails again, it will be a major confidence hit. I really don’t want him to swing and miss twice in a row. Optimizing around the market generally has a higher chance of success. Just get some success under the belt; one can always go back and build what he wants to build, maybe as the next project
- But startups are a hard journey, and entrepreneurs need lots of passion to keep going even for a day, right? Turns out, growth and success can bring lots of passion, especially for the founders whose first company didn’t work out. I know a founder who stares at the Slack channel connected to Stripe revenue notifications literally all day long 🙂
- Fixing customers’ problems also brings joy and passion. Who is born naturally excited about supply chains or insurance? But those are huge industries that have problems affecting lots and lots of people. Be the tech person that finally brings solutions to their problems, and you might enjoy the Jesus second coming moment