How To Turn A Winning Idea Into A Startup
“Before man reaches the moon, your mail will be delivered within hours from New York to Australia by guided missiles. We stand on the threshold of rocket mail.” – Arthur Summerfield, U.S. Postmaster General, 1959
When people have a winning idea and do nothing about it, the idea soon fades until it is forgotten.
That is, until one day they encounter someone who has turned a very similar idea into a great company.
Then there follows that sinking feeling in the pit of the stomach: That person could have been living a successful entrepreneurial life, if only . . . they had done something about their idea. What stopped them? Why didn’t they follow through?
People talk themselves out of great business ideas all the time and for many reasons, but fear, negative thoughts, and a lack of self-confidence are the prime culprits. Like a kid touching a hot stove, people will convince themselves that any bad economic news, like a dip in the stock market, means that it’s the wrong time to start a new business. But running a business is never risk-free, the economy will never be perfect, and waiting for the ideal conditions only risks letting your idea die from neglect.
Don’t do that.
Instead, immediately take action to make your business a reality, which builds momentum in the opposite direction. I call this, ‘reacting forward.’
Reacting forward means making a commitment. When we make a commitment we send a powerful message through the Higgs Field. Because everything is connected through this field we then attract to us people and events that further fuel the idea.
At first one might not have a clue about what to do with the great idea, still react forward. For a startup there is very simple and inexpensive way to react forward.
Once you discover your winning idea, register it as a company.
Online companies make the process simple and inexpensive (replacing the need for expensive attorney fees). I consider this is to be one of the simplest, least costly, and most effective things an entrepreneur can do after getting a winning idea. In the next activity I’ll take you through the process. For now, I want you to consider not just the legal and tax benefits to be had, but the key psychological impact taking this step creates.
According to the Small Business Administration in 2022, 70% of all businesses in the USA are sole proprietors and 99 percent never register their business, which is crazy given all the benefits. The financial protection alone is worth the small cost, but where it really pays off is psychologically and emotionally. The benefit of ‘feeling’ like an entrepreneur is critical.
The benefit of reacting forward cannot be overstated. Once you incorporate your company, you have set your idea in motion.
You have established a business, one that you own. You are the boss, and you have the paperwork to prove it. Doesn’t that feel exciting? Doesn’t that build self-confidence? Doesn’t that add to awe?
Now every time you see the registration paperwork, you can’t help but plan the next step, which is figuring out all the nitty-gritty details for how you will accomplish the business you’ve just created.
Let’s consider a spectacular example of the effect this has of converting the energy of an awesome idea into a real company success.
Michael Dell’s biography is a great example of the benefit of a non-entrepreneur constantly reacting forward.
In 1983, the notoriously shy Michael Dell’s great idea was to sell computers directly to customers, which would allow them to be configured according to individual desires. Speaking twenty years later he said of the idea, “No one told me that we couldn’t do it, and if they did, I wasn’t listening.”
At the time, IBM personal computers sold in stores for about $3,000. After taking them apart and rebuilding them, Dell realized the components could be purchased for one-fourth the price. Even with added memory, bigger monitors and faster modems, the PCs could still be sold at a handsome profit.
This was his me-better idea. Soon he was buying components in bulk to reduce the cost. A good business decision, but it meant his room was starting to look like a mechanic’s shop. Regardless, he was constantly reacting forward on his idea, and by surrounding himself with the tools of his trade he was constantly imagining and adding attention.
“I was quite excited about the possibilities for personal computers and how they could change society. Meanwhile, as a customer, I was disappointed that when I went to a computer store, the salespeople didn’t really know about computers. I had this idea to sell the products directly to the user over the phone. The Internet,” he adds, “was an unimaginable gift from heaven that came ten years later.”
Dell tapped his savings account for $1,000, and incorporated his idea as PCs Limited.
This is a pivotal point in the life of a start-up and also in the art of creating flow. Taking this step tells life you are committed to this idea. Keep in mind that the Internet was not available and to do that back then required going through a legal service. Today, the same process costs around $100 and takes five minutes online.
Being shy made him usually reticent to approach potential customers, but the effect of formally incorporating also gave him a higher self-confidence as a legitimate, real-life business and CEO. He started building and selling computers for people he knew at college. His emphasis, however, wasn’t just on good machines, but strong customer support and cheaper prices. Soon, he had accounts outside of school, and it wasn’t long before Dell dropped out of college and focused all his efforts on his business.
The numbers proved staggering. In 1984, Dell’s first full year in business, he had $6 million in sales. By 2000, Dell was a billionaire and his company had offices in 34 countries and employee count of more than 35,000. The following year, Dell Computer surpassed Compaq Computer as the world’s largest PC maker.
Dell’s history has many key turning points, and there is a reason Michael Dell is respected as an exemplary entrepreneur. Early in their story, we can see his willingness and ability to adapt, which surely was a key to their survival in the first few critical years. In my opinion, however, there was a more significant moment, and it is right at the birth of the company when a person takes a great moment of insight and reacts forward.
Whether you have just an idea for a company or you already run a small business, the benefits of incorporation are incalculable.
Homework Time:
Your homework here is obvious. You need to do this and for a lot of reasons.
Are you procrastinating?
Are you saying, “yeah I get it but I’ll do it later?”
Are you saying, “It’s $150, I can’t afford it, so I’ll wait until I can?”
And you think you have what it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? Wake up.
Do it now.
Resources
In this VLS-E weekly meet up VLS-E Founding member Blake Barthelmess describes his journey from the corporate world through jumping into the entrepreneur world. He describes in a real-life scenario the axiom “you don’t know what business you are in until you start” through starting with one market in mind and finding the real opportunity was one of the least sexy part of the business. I recommend watching this recording, which includes a valuable Q&A session, and then taking a break to let the knowledge digest.
A clip from my interview on PBS show ‘Between the Lines.’ You can watch the full 30 minute show on youtube for free
VLS-E and winning Ideas
