Dan Martell - How To Choose The Right Project or Business Idea

In this episode, I talk about how to pick the right project to work on and how to filter through multiple projects to find the one that's right for you. As an entrepreneur, the biggest challenge as an entrepreneur that has a lot of ideas is that we can start many things, but at some point you have to choose the right one. And what I want to share with you guys today is 3 strategies that I use to figure out which projects I work on.

00:00:00.500 How to choose the right project.

00:00:02.200 I don't know if you're like me, but I've probably got about

00:00:04.500 50 different domains for projects that I'd like to start.

00:00:08.300 And at some point I need to decide which one am I going to

00:00:11.300 pursue, you know?

00:00:12.200 I think that's the biggest challenge as an entrepreneur that

00:00:14.000 has a lot of ideas, a lot of creative juices, is we can start

00:00:17.900 a lot of things, but at some point you're going to have to pick

00:00:20.300 the right one.

00:00:20.800 And what I want to share with you guys today is three strategies

00:00:23.300 that I use to figure out which projects I work.

00:00:26.500 Now, I've been fortunate enough to have built, you know, two

00:00:29.200 venture-backed companies, but in the beginning

00:00:31.600 of starting those, I actually had about two or three

00:00:33.800 other projects that I was doing in parallel,

00:00:36.200 and then I eventually chose the one that became

00:00:38.800 that startup.

00:00:39.800 You know, recently, Clarity, my last company was acquired,

00:00:41.900 but when I started that, I had Photovino

00:00:44.200 and another app called Secret Sender.

00:00:46.200 And I tell you that, guys, to give you some context,

00:00:48.300 but I totally get what you're going through.

00:00:50.400 If you're currently working on multiple projects,

00:00:52.900 I've been there, and these three strategies will really

00:00:54.600 help you pick the right ones.

00:00:56.200 The first one is, what trend is going on in the industry

00:01:00.400 that makes your idea the right one to pursue?

00:01:04.400 You know, like when I'm thinking of companies

00:01:06.280 I've invested in, as an angel investor,

00:01:07.840 I've invested in about 30 plus companies,

00:01:09.780 and the question I love to ask the founders is, why now?

00:01:12.380 Why that idea now in this market?

00:01:15.720 So think about it for your idea and your project.

00:01:18.520 What is it about the current state of trends?

00:01:21.900 And if you haven't seen Mary Meeker's internet trends,

00:01:24.120 she does it every year, so just search

00:01:25.660 Internet Trends, Mir Meeker.

00:01:27.860 She gives the data to support the different trends.

00:01:30.160 So you want to kind of figure out what's going on in the

00:01:32.460 market that you can map to that your project or idea feels like

00:01:36.260 it's going to be an upward trend.

00:01:38.960 Because it doesn't matter, you know, if you're 2008 and starting

00:01:41.960 a social media website, if you follow or if you kind of rode

00:01:45.360 that trend line, you know, high tides raise all boats, you would

00:01:48.960 have done well and I was fortunate to start Flowtown in

00:01:51.460 2008, a social marketing tool, and we got acquired in 2011

00:01:55.560 Because we are part of that trend, that whole thing,

00:01:57.720 the whole market was going up, your idea, your project

00:02:00.600 in that, and that's the way you wanna do it.

00:02:02.560 So why now, what trend?

00:02:04.400 Answer that question, that's step one

00:02:05.960 of figuring out which project to filter through.

00:02:07.940 If that one looks good, the second one is

00:02:10.300 what domain expertise do you have that's unique?

00:02:14.440 What are uniquely qualified, what experience do you have

00:02:17.600 previously that makes you, this is the other question asked,

00:02:20.800 the right person, why you?

00:02:23.600 Why should you be the one solving this problem?

00:02:26.120 What have you done in your life?

00:02:27.400 Where have you worked?

00:02:28.340 What experience do you have?

00:02:29.780 What hobbies do you have?

00:02:31.160 You know, I still remember the conversation I had

00:02:33.040 with Laura Fitton.

00:02:33.880 She was the founder of a company called 140,

00:02:35.940 which was back in the day, I think it was 2008, 2009,

00:02:38.900 the app store for Twitter.

00:02:41.560 And you know, when you think about unfair advantages,

00:02:44.380 here's a person that not only had a huge following on Twitter,

00:02:47.680 but she owned 140.com, which is a pretty amazing domain.

00:02:51.220 She just finished writing the book, Twitter for Dummies,

00:02:54.920 so super deep domain knowledge and huge audience and reach.

00:02:59.520 And when you ask yourself, who better in the world,

00:03:01.820 somebody more passionate than Laura

00:03:03.820 or more domain experience,

00:03:05.420 you couldn't have found anybody to execute on that problem

00:03:07.820 and that's why a couple years later

00:03:08.920 they got acquired by HubSpot.

00:03:10.120 So I share that with you guys because I really think

00:03:12.620 that you need to ask yourself, what have you done

00:03:14.920 and why are you the right person to solve this problem?

00:03:16.920 And then the third thing, if you get through

00:03:18.120 those first two filters, the third is,

00:03:20.620 What are you most passionate about?

00:03:22.180 I know we talk about passion, but here's why.

00:03:24.860 You know, when you think about projects,

00:03:26.620 the one, Steve Jobs said this best.

00:03:28.360 He says, you know, it's not about passion

00:03:30.960 just because you wanna be excited about going to work,

00:03:32.460 but it's about passion because when things just seem

00:03:35.100 like they're not gonna work out,

00:03:36.400 when the whole world is against you,

00:03:37.800 when every idea seems to fail,

00:03:39.640 it's the ones that are most passionate about the idea

00:03:41.480 that are gonna pursue it, that are gonna persist,

00:03:43.840 and those are the ones that are gonna have success. 0.68

00:03:46.240 It's almost like, you know, are you crazy? 1.00

00:03:48.720 Are you a little insane? 0.99

00:03:49.780 because from the outside world, from normal people, 0.99

00:03:52.140 your pursuit looks a little crazy.

00:03:54.960 But for me, the reason why it's important to have that

00:03:57.180 is because it should energize you.

00:03:59.220 You know, if you have three different projects,

00:04:00.720 one's kind of like a really great idea,

00:04:02.860 but you're not really passionate about it.

00:04:04.400 The other one, maybe on the outside,

00:04:06.400 it doesn't look like a great idea,

00:04:07.540 but for you and your alignment and your vision

00:04:09.640 and what you want to do in the world,

00:04:10.840 it is the one that gets you energized and excited

00:04:13.180 and jumping out of bed in the morning.

00:04:14.680 That's the one you're going to want to follow.

00:04:16.340 So those are the three areas.

00:04:18.240 The what trend, why now?

00:04:21.320 You know, what domain expertise you have, why you?

00:04:24.720 Or what are you most passionate about

00:04:26.520 or which one gets you most energized?

00:04:28.880 Those are my three strategies for choosing

00:04:30.840 what projects to pursue.

00:04:32.880 Hope you found that useful.

00:04:33.840 Please like this video and leave a comment below

00:04:36.080 and let me know what projects exciting you right now.

00:04:38.440 I'd love to hear from you guys.

00:04:39.360 Below in the comments, I wanna challenge you all

00:04:41.840 to live a bigger life and a bigger business

00:04:44.520 and I'll see you guys next Monday.

Dan Martell - September 14, 2015

How To Choose The Right Project or Business Idea

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