Unarguably arbitrary preposterous concatenation:

icky pickle smirk xenophobic blithe mellifluous fatuous bassoon goofy loathsome tutu platoon armature gobsmacked zippy zoo nincompoop snarky mugwump asymptotic jonquil consensus threnody sloe giggle imbroglio peplum mandible furious femur serendipitous booby flummox evocative chenille pendulum cryptic flabbergasted hornswoggled scalawag nebulous loony flagellum conflagration accumulate incubate mithridatic malevolent melanoma moose malaise punchy tepid spleen buffalo snapdragon hayseed fart propeller squishy gazelle lamentable loopy lithe languid luminous limpid linguini lagniappe fetching felicitous fragrant nimble bouncy bubble cascading pontificating penguin muffin giddy doppelganger spatula befuddle flange buttery twaddle lollygagging lugubrious feeble ducksnort* synchopathology**

Kooky wackadoodle capricious glossary assemblage.

**You’d have to Google it.

Most people starting up a business believe that having a “Great Idea” is central. They were inspired by a brilliant breakthrough while showering one morning, so they believe success is a matter of executing that vision.

That optimistic energy is essential fuel for the entrepreneurial mindset. Belief (vision without evidence) ignites innovation, and should be celebrated. Confetti and noisemakers, everybody. Break out the bubbly.

Experience tells us, however, that belief is often a delusion. That “wow, nobody ever thought of this before” exhilaration might be deflated by some digging to reveal that it was indeed thought of by some guy in Bumdoodle, Montana, in 1997.

As success factors go, in fact, having a Great Idea is at best number three or four on the hit parade.

Why? For one thing, you can’t patent an idea. You can’t trademark an idea. You can only protect the expression of an idea. Your competitors will, in the future, copy your concept, quite legally – so what will matter more than the idea is how you execute, how quickly you grab market share, and whether you can “own” the category.

Besides, ideas have a way of morphing during the evolution of the startup from vision to launch. What you wind up going into business with may be a lot different from what you imagined in that eureka shower moment.

So, if the Great Big Idea isn’t the biggest factor, what is? On to Startup Success Step #2.

Your startup can succeed even without a unique breakthrough idea, as we saw in Step #1.

Zappo’s doesn’t sell better shoes, they sell shoes better.

It’s also challenging but possible to succeed without having a store/factory/office/brewery/campus, jaw-dropping name, logo, patented process, secret sauce – or any number of other “essentials.”

The existence of a substantial, findable market segment for your product or service is the one essential that you cannot escape. If “the dogs won’t eat it,” your antibacterial toothbrush is doomed, despite how dazzling you, your investors or your mom believe it is.

This is not to say that the category has to exist already. You may be introducing something so new it creates a new category, the way FedEx or Pinterest or American Idol did. You can’t get to that exalted level, however, unless you can confidently point to, say, Hispanic women age 25-49 who will go nuts for your product/service as soon as they learn about it.

Your startup is a dicey investment until you know you are going to fill the real need or a real group of people.

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The very idea of a Year 5 Sales Volume Projection for a company that hasn’t opened its doors yet is clearly an amusing fantasy, but there it sits (lies?) in that time-honored novella, the business plan.

If it’s a fantasy, is it still worth doing? Of course. The exercise of committing to paper a coherent document, with objectives, strategy, tactics, SWOT – and a bunch of bloated numbers – is a useful ritual. This exercise of diligent planning to fill in all the blanks, tick off the required boxes, is a solid discipline to avoid overlooking potential disasters.

Sophisticated investors, on the other hand, may pay less attention to the numbers than to the management team, concept, market and competitive environment. The net net is that how your branding relates to your target segments may weigh more than any spreadsheet proving you’ll take 7.34% of the market.

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Tough question, with as many answers as there are startups. Don’t accept the formula that you must have a 12-month supply of money to operate the business – why prevent yourself from creating your venture just because your funds are limited?

Yes, the undercapitalized startup is in perpetual peril. Fueled by impatience and wishful thinking, the rocket gets off the launchpad but sputters out of fuel before reaching orbit. Splash happens. So it’s important to make an objective, realistic, careful estimate of how much capital you believe you need to launch. Then double it.

However daunting that may seem, it is still possible to succeed without having a boatload of your own bucks … especially if your market is identified, your differentiation is relevant, and your story is compelling enough to convince investors.

The important part of that last paragraph is “enough to convince investors.” Hey. If you can’t persuade the money people, who are presumably more objective and practical, less likely to be starry-eyed, should you really rethink the whole project? You are and will be your most important investor, after all, and have the most at stake. If nobody (well, except Mom) sees it as a great place to risk money, is it too risky? Is everyone else out of step?

The good news is, they might be. Many an entrepreneur has been dismissed as delusional, only to be redeemed as a visionary. So follow your dream – take the first step to persuade the market to buy your widget by persuading investors to help make it happen. As the old Bedouin saying goes, “Trust Allah, but tether your camel.”

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Many entrepreneurs are allergic to concept testing research. Sometimes it’s the expense that scares them off, or overconfidence, or the fear of a disillusioning result.

Get serious. You’ve got to prove the concept if you’re going to convince investors to fund you, or find the best messaging to communicate the idea, or make any reasonable decisions going forward.

Professional research firms highly skilled in this area are, as they say, worth the money if you’ve got the money. We’ll be happy to recommend one to you.

But what if the cost is prohibitive on your budget? There’s a work-around that won’t supply you with motivational behavior clues, but will at least give you an inexpensive way to test concept viability: online advertising. Use an ecommerce channel to test your idea against a real-world audience, looking for better hot-button headlines, or more receptive demographic segments, or price elasticity. There are creative ways to learn about your market’s willingness to accept your idea, using people who are voting with their wallets. Imagine research that pays for itself!

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Knowing her hat size or his sign of the zodiac seems frivolous, yes? On the other hand, you ought to be able to describe the ideal not-yet-a-customer in your target market bulls-eye by age, income, geography, lifestyle, aspiration, attitude, awareness, spending habits – at the very least, you should be able to speak with them in words they respond to. (Yes, we said “speak with” not “speak to.”)

At this point let me stress that B2B marketers and B2C marketers are in the same boat, though they often fail to acknowledge it. Whether you’re marketing industrial equipemnt or CPG, you face the same basic question: Why will your target buyer choose your brand? Do you have the forklift that’s most efficient, most reliable, longest-lasting, lowest price, best-known-so-I-won’t-get-fired, or easiest to repair? Will she buy your shredded wheat because it has no sugar, no salt, one ingredient, or was what Mommy served? Probe to find the real motivator (please note that is not a plural), and you can start the buyer-brand dialog.

A vital element of your startup’s success is insightful motivational research. We repeat from Stop #2 that proving the existence of a market is your first imperative. You must uncover it, understand the demographic/psychographic profile of those human decision-makers, and be able to visualize conversing with that primary target personality.

There are of course many ways to investigate the market, ranging from commissioning qualitative research (more important at this stage than quantitative), or, as we talked about concept testing in Step #5, use online advertising to develop a better understanding of market demographics and psychographics – actually testing your messaging to the marketplace. See who’ll signal their interest in learning more, or even commit to buy. Voting with one’s wallet is test of sincerity.

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Danger! You have patent protection!

There was a time when a patent meant erecting a barrier to entry for your product, with a reasonable chance of defending it against copycat idea vampires.

Those were the days. In computer technology, software, financial services and a number of other competitive environments, it is very easy for the sharks to study your patent or design patent, then modify it, improve on it and come after you.

Having a patent (a published public record, after all) gives your competition the opportunity to examine your product and processes to gain a better understanding of how to come into the market to take your lunch money. Wham bam thank you entrepreneur. Sometimes having no patent at all is a better barrier to entry.

There was a classic article in the Harvard Business Review years ago called Hustle as Strategy, drawing examples from the financial services industry, but applicable to many. It pointed out the need to improve your product or service continuously (and immediately after launch) because other people will imitate you, wiping out that “first in advantage.” Keep introducing the next variation or improvement to keep the wolves behind your sled.

The “first-in advantage,” in other words, is only as good and as durable as the quality and ferocity of the second-in players’ counterattack. For the most innovative ventures, you may have a 100 share for a period of time, but success will bring on that wolfpack. This can be your downfall – but it can also be a huge opportunity. A me-too competitor or two can often stimulate interest, giving you the chance to to keep a significant slice of a much, much bigger pie.

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Half of the entrepreneurs we meet, when asked about competitors and barriers to entry, say “We’ll leave them in the dust.” This may stem from heavy doses of wishful thinking with fingers in ears. The other half are full of fear and trembling that the Big Bad Behemoths (P&G, Apple, Levi’s, Disney, Whoever) will crush them eleven minutes after launch. To both halves, we counsel: don’t let your emotions run away with you; get some objective advice about what to expect in the counterattack. To the fearful we add: remember, Goliath lost.

The only big question about barriers is: considering what kinds you employ (patent, process, secret sauce, technology, star personnel, distribution, infrastructure, prayer), how much time do they give you?

There are two good choices of what to do with that time. One is to use the six months or 18 months or whatever you have to make the next set of improvements to stay one jump ahead of the copycats, as we suggested in Step #7. The second choice is to move aggressively to market, grabbing market share as quickly as you can.

Could you “own” the category? If you could possibly do that, imitators will not be able to dislodge from your perch – but to own it requires big doses of courage, capital and commitment.

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Who will you steal from?

You can’t invent a new audience, or discover money not being spent elsewhere, as our wise friend/business guru Dave Baney often says. You must steal a customer away from somebody else. Understanding this reality puts into perspective the activities that you need to convince someone to buy from you.

Your revenues will not be created out of nothing. If and when your future customers spend money with you, it’s because they won’t be spending somewhere else on a product/service/vendor/brand they now apparently trust. Once you understand that, you can plan strategy to wrestle customers away from the entrenched brand(s). What can differentiate you strongly enough to motivate your market to switch?

All branding takes place in a three-dimensional competitive space. The perception of your brand is always a matter relative to the strength, relevance and differentiators of direct competitors, alternate ways to spend money, or the decision to do nothing. Putting perceptual distance between your brand and those alternatives requires you to think hard about all three dimensions: how can you be more visible, what can differentiate you strongly, and whether that factor really matters to your target segment.

It’s not enough to be good. You have to be better than.

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