TrialPay is proud to announce a brand new video series entitled “TrialPay ThoughtBox” – a place where you ask questions and get video responses from our veteran management team.
This week our team was asked, “When should I start a business?” Business veteran and serial entrepreneur Daniel Greenberg (TrialPay CMO) tackled the question and gave some solid advice for all aspiring entrepreneurs and “startupers” out there.
Please ask your questions in the form below or leave your insights in the comment section below!
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Some good points in this video.
But I disagree with the following statements :
1/ Is must be a large market. Many people make fat pile of cash from super niche market. Sure you won’t be the next Google or Microsoft, but you can have a very nice lifestlyle business.
2/ You will have a hard time building a large a & profitable company.
Well, Brian Greenstone made almost $2 millons with one Iphone game,
he’s a one man shop. Unless you want to be the next Google you can be a small team and be profitable, look at 37 signals for instance
3/ For VC funding, experience is important : hmm experience is over rated, how many unproven team with uproven technology have changed the world. What was Sergey & Larry experience before Google ?
Thanks for jumping into the conversation, Tarek!
There are always exceptions to the rule. Thanks for highlighting some of them.
Excellent points Tarek. I couldn’t agree with you more. A sure-fire strategy for a one-man shop or small business to out-compete the big guys is to go ‘super-niche’, as you say. The assumption underlying my advice is that one wants to build a huge company. You correctly point out that many people are content building small profitable firms as well.
I have found, however, that its a whole lot easier to grow revenues when there are a lot of people to target. I’ve worked in companies that are trying to find buyers that are essentially “needles in a haystacks”. In these instances, the sales & marketing costs per sale tend to be exorbitant. You can have a great solution but it can be really hard to find anyone to buy it. Or your market can be very easy to find, but you have to diligently watch your cost structure because there aren’t enough customers to support more infrastructure.
I would argue this is exactly why you don’t see many global companies originating from small countries. The local market size isn’t large enough for them to achieve scale. But there again, I digress from your argument….some people just want to build small profitable companies. And yes, I would say $2 million is small indeed.
Thanks for watching the video and offering your comments. I really appreciate it!
-Daniel
tankeeo