I'm currently building a product in the Agritech space or “smart farming” and it's build around brining agriculture to the masses and allowing people to grow food in their homes in a way they can show off and be proud of.
My product is focused mostly around design and aesthetics as my goal is to make agriculture feel as though it fits within a home, make it feel like furniture as opposed to just some new quirky tech product.
The thing is, as a 20 year old visionary I just don't know if it will succeed. The risk is always there and when it comes to fundraising it helps mitigate the risk, but still how do you go into something blind and have the confidence to pull through the other side successful?
When starting your first startup (solo) how do you manage risk/have the confidence it will succeed?
byu/Otherwise-One6154 inEntrepreneur
Posted by Otherwise-One6154
2 Comments
Just don’t fail.
hey, i speak to founders on a regular basis to get their insights for my newsletter. What i have found is that confidence is built by a response from your users, and ideally before building a product.
For example, before building your product, build a prototype, attend agriculture conferences, maybe even get a stand if its not costly, and get the users to give you immediate feedback. That should give you immediate confidence if your product is worthwhile. If you feel like a demand is there, get some details from them, email address would be ideal and update them with your progress. Take them on a journey, build up to a release and release it to those users you got the feedback from.
How do i know this? A founder i had interviewed for my newsletter did this exactly, currently turning over $3m for a women’s accessory product.
The point being, confidence i think comes from understanding what your users need, they’ll give you the confidence i.e. they’ll tell you what they need, and you go and build that. You already know if the demand exists for it, why? cause you’ve asked them! So ask, speak to your users, they should fill you in with confidence.
Please do not build, ‘waste’ time or effort, money or any other resources without speaking to who you’re selling to.
Risk of failing is there ofcourse, feedback can be false positive – but atleast it’ll reduce the risk of failure substantially if you know what you’re building and for whom.
Best of luck!