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In a post from his blog, Bob Crimmins, Founder of MoonTango and Seattle Founder Institute mentor, addresses the business side of starting up. While most founders tend to focus on their idea and passion, they often neglect thinking about logistics and whether or not an idea is viable. Bob says, It’s really hard to tell if a startup business is likely to succeed but it’s surprisingly easy to show that it’s likely to fail...if you can make your startup business fail on paper first then you’re way ahead of the game.”

Below, a portion of "It's not a startup...it's a startup business" has been republished.

[This post was originally published on GeekWire, February 13, 2013, under the title "It’s not a startup … It’s a startup business."]

"As a species, we can be pretty lazy with language.  That’s cool… we all know what we mean.  But I reckon there can be benefits from occasional reminders about what we all think we know.  The word “startup” is such an occasion.

We say it and we hear it all the time.  But “startup” is really just shorthand for “startup business.”  We all know that, right?  So what’s the point of laboring over two whole additional syllables when we’re already all on the same page?

I’m not claiming causality here, but I find it curious how infrequently I hear entrepreneurs talking about the business side of their startup businesses.  Mostly, we love to talk about the idea and our passion for it.  We love to talk about our motivation… the solution… the design… the technology… the brilliance.  The business?  Not so much.

Mostly, the ideas I hear are good.  Some are really good.  But a startup business needs to be more (much more) than just a really good idea.  It needs to be a good business too.  And as it turns out, there’s usually a huge chasm between good ideas and good businesses.

Here’s the rub: there are lots and lots of really good ideas, cool ideas, outstanding ideas, stuff we all wish existed and if it did exist we think we’d use it… that are NOT also good businesses.  It’s only a small subset of good ideas that are also good businesses.

Job one for an entrepreneur is to figure out if there’s actually a good business to be had from a good idea. Or is it just a good idea?  It’s OK if a good idea turns out not to be a good business — just so long as you figure that out before you spend three years of your life, expend all your savings, exhaust your relationships and take down your whole team with you while you’re at it.

There’s no certainty to be had here but it’s remarkable how often startups are pursued without ever diving deep on the business side.  It’s a rare thing when an entrepreneur reaches out to me because they want to talk about the sustainability of their business model or the scalability of their revenue strategy.  They want to talk about their idea.  Which is just fine because I love talking about ideas.  But even more than the ideas themselves, I love talking about the business of the idea.

So once I think I have a reasonable understanding of their product, their market, their team (which usually takes less than 15 minutes)… I am ready to talk business.  How are or you going to make money?  How much will customers pay?  Why would they pay that?  How long will it take and how much will it cost you to acquire those customers?  How many have you talked to?  What’s the long term value of a customer once acquired?  What’s your distribution strategy?  Is it a two sided market?  How are you going to solve for that?  And a hundred other questions. Needless to say, these can be hard questions to hear if you haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about them and can make for a disappointing conversation for a lot of entrepreneurs.

In any case, here’s what I’ve found: It’s really hard to tell if a startup business is likely to succeed but it’s surprisingly easy to show that it’s likely to fail (or at least show that there’s rational justification for believing you don’t know how it could possibly succeed).  This is really good news because if you can make your startup business fail on paper first then you’re way ahead of the game.

Then you have some choices to make besides fervently proclaiming your passion for the idea and constantly quoting the late Steve Jobs on perseverance and citing Instagram’s acquisition.

You could choose to call it what it looks like, i.e., just a good idea but not a good business.  There’s no shame in that. Lots of useful, clever ideas turn out not to be a good business.

Remember, most good ideas are not also a good business.  If it’s an idea you really care about about but you can’t wrangle a business model out of it then you may have just discovered a labor of love that you can have a blast working on in your spare time without the pressure of feeling like you should quit your paying job.  And who knows, if you keep working at it, something might change and you might stumble upon a business pivot that turns it from a labor of love to a startup business."

Click here to continue reading Bob's post, and be sure to follow him on Twitter @bcrimmins for more startup insights.

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