Involved in a Startup Business? Ask Yourself These Questions...

Filed in archive Bootstrapping Thoughts on January 16, 2010

© e-magic


VentureBeat recently republished a blog post by angel investor Jason Cohen that looked at six questions entrepreneurs involved in startup businesses should ask themselves regularly. As a bootstraper you might not be interested in taking his money, but that doesn't make his questions any less interesting...

Question Number One (a two part question, really): In one sentence, what does your product do and who buys it? And in one sentence, why does someone buy your product? For many business people, those questions aren't easy to answer.

These are surprisingly difficult questions. The shorter and more precise your answers, the more you understand why you exist. If the answer is: "I honestly don't really know why people give us money," that's something to remedy immediately. If you have an answer, is it because you have hard evidence that this is how your customers perceive you and why they give you money, or just because you believe it?

Take a look at the rest of Jason's questions. They might make the difference between success and failure.