So after ruffling around with our readings for this post, I realized they reminded me that startups are basically a rollercoaster ride of different motions.
When it comes to going through the motions, I am an individual who has ideas in her head daily and thinks it would be really cool if it were to come to life. Now that I’ve read things and attended this class; it scares me. (Haha.)
What I’m learning is that great things take time and when a team is involved, it doesn’t mean things will become easier because there is still as much work to be done than before.
One if the most stressful parts is that the product is simply trial-and-error. According to the blog post A Minimum Viable Product Is Not a Product, It’s a Process, “In a post-mortem of more than 100 startups, CB Insights found that the number one cause of startup failure (42% of the time) was “no market need.”
Nearly half of these startups spent months or even years building a product before they found out that they were wrong in their most central assumption: that someone was interested in that product in the first place.” That for me was huge because many have to realize that just because you or a group of people may like something, it doesn’t mean it is the right product to be successful. The hard thing would be to find out all your time and hard work went to waste because you didn’t find your (as it says in the blog) “smallest experiment” to test that assumption.
When it comes to work, in any aspect you have to work SMARTER not harder. I think a lot of things take a left turn when we think about them too much. Yes, a thoughtful execution is key, but we have to realize that there are going to be a million bumps in the road and you have to take it with a grain of salt and find the fun in what you are trying to create.
This TED Talk though!
I really enjoyed the Ted Talk with Joe Gebbia! At first, I was wondering where he was going with it, but as he went on I was blown away.
His explanation of how AirBnB was created was one of the simplest, yet impactful talks I’ve heard in a while. He talked about the struggle of getting it to where it is now and that they didn’t get it right the first time around.
Just to think that something as simple (yet dangerous in my opinion) as inviting a stranger to say in your living room on an air mattress could result in an actual friendship and successful business idea shows us that what we want to create is possible if we just work at it.
My favorite quote I took from this, as well as something I think sets the tone for life in general was: “Turning fear into fun is the gift of creativity”
Spartans Innovate 
I agree the TED talk was simple yet impactful and he turned something risky and dangerous into a successful company!
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Hey Cydni! I really like how you mention that nearly half of startups we’ve discussed have spent months and in some cases years building their product before they realize that something is wrong with their central assumption. And what you say is true, and idea may sound really cool, but until you test your assumption with a real audience, the idea might not be as successful as you had hoped.
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I really liked you post. I was honestly surprised about the Ted Talk as well but loved it, I actually watched it like three times because the information he gave was powerful to me. The quote that stuck out to me as well was turning fear into fun is the gift of creativity, a lot of people have a fear of starting their own business or even just changing their hair color but when you turn it into something you are passionate about or is fun to you it becomes creative and just makes you keep going.
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I love this post. This TED talk was really inspirational, and you made me feel like I didn’t even have to listen to it to understand that. That quote too, wow. Creativity is definitely a gift, it allows us to see things in different ways and give different meanings to things that people would just look at and be like “oh, cool.” Working harder is always great, but sometimes I feel like people tend to work so hard they are overwhelmed then just wig out. Smarter is the better option, plan everything, then re-adjust when it doesn’t workout exactly how you planned.
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