Well, having just given Forbes the back of our hand in the last post, this one, by Eric Wagner, isn’t too bad.
There are at least 7 roadblocks to success for entrepreneurs these days: that’s what keeps us in business. However, we can remove all of the roadblocks mentioned in Eric’s post through our courses.
Our major bone to pick with Eric is that the first roadblock to success is a poorly researched business idea: who’s in the market now, where are they, what’ s their market power, what are they likely to do if you launch, what do you do to counter what they do, and so on. All of this can be figured out; Eric alludes to this roadblock, but to our way of thinking, it’s the critical one to remove.
If the idea is good and validated by independent research (surveys, focus groups, etc.), then money can be found somewhere. In fact, with crowdfunding sites, it’s easier than ever to find money. If your idea’s really good, you can even try for ABC’s ‘Shark Tank’. We’ve had some correspondence with them about appearing.
It’s also easier than ever to have your idea stolen, as a guy from Posterous with whom we’ve corresponded, this morning. But, he says he’s rounded up new investors, and is going to squash the first mover. We wish him well, but we hope he’s done his research around the first mover’s patent, pricing, or whatever.
So, if you want to take a peek at Eric Wagner’s article, it’s at http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2012/10/17/7-deadling-roadblocks-for-startup-entrepreneurs