MBA2582 Q&A Wednesday: How Do I Build a Business When Everyone Says It Won’t Work?

0:00What do you do when everyone around you says your business idea is doomed to fail? Should you fight? Should you prove them wrong? Or is there wisdom in their doubts? In today's Q &A Wednesday episode, we get into a question from Hassan that dives into this exact dilemma. How do I build a business when everyone says it won't work? My promise in today's episode is to uncover the truth about validating your business idea. We want to avoid blind faith. We want to build a case that proves your concept, your idea has real potential.

0:36Welcome back to the$100 MBA show. I'm your host, Omar Zinholm, where we deliver practical business lessons three times a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. My job is to help you take action so you can start, grow, and scale your business. Today's episode is Q &A Wednesday. If you have a question you want to ask, by the way, just go ahead and ask it over at 100mba.net slash Q, and we'll answer it right here on Q &A Wednesday. Today's question is from Hassan, and Hassan asked, How do I build a business when everyone says it won't work? First of all, Hassan, congratulations on having the courage to think differently, to go against the grain.

1:12The world's most successful entrepreneurs have all faced skepticism at some point. But here's the key. You can't rely on gut feelings and ignore criticism. You just can't, okay? You need to validate your idea with facts you can prove. But let's back up a bit. One of the things I had to learn the hard way is how to get my mind right when it came to my ideas, my business ideas. And the advice I would give myself, and I can go back in time, is don't fall in love with any particular idea. This is one of the biggest mistakes entrepreneurs make, including myself, like I just mentioned. But here's the thing.

1:47One of the best ways to change this is to change your goal. Your goal isn't to prove your idea is right. is to become a successful, profitable entrepreneur. That's what we're aiming for here. That's what winning looks like is having a business that's successful, that's making us money, that's giving us financial freedom, it's giving us everything we want out of that business. It's not to be right. It's not so that we have the right idea. If the idea I have is a disaster and it won't get me to my goal, which is being successful, then forget that idea. You know, F that idea. Who cares about the idea?

2:19The idea doesn't matter. You're in search of the truth. You're in search of what's going to work. If you're emotionally attached to your idea, you might ignore clear signs that it won't work. The best business isn't the one you love the most. It's the one the market loves the most. The market matters. And that's why we need to show proof the market loves what we have. We need to show evidence that this is actually something that people want and will be successful. So fight for success, not for any particular idea. By the way, this makes you a way better leader and listener so that when you're with your team and they're sharing ideas or they're even contradicting what you're saying or maybe disagreeing and say, hey, I think we should go another route.

3:05You are open to those ideas because you're trying to get to the path that's going to get you to success faster and more reliably. You're checking your ego out the door. And by the way, you hired this person to do this to help you become successful. So it's not about the ideas you should be fighting for. It's which idea is going to help us succeed. And this applies to like the business idea, the product or service, or any idea in marketing and sales in any part of any decision that we're trying to make in our business. So what should we do instead? Well, that leads me to tip number two, build an evidence-based case.

3:39To know if your idea has potential, you need evidence. You need proof. This isn't about hunches. It's about data. So we're going to validate three things. The first thing we're going to validate is the problem. Validate the problem. Is this problem that I'm trying to solve a problem people are actively trying to solve? Okay, so how do you do this? Well, you look for proof. Are people searching for solutions online to this problem? Are they already spending money on alternatives or other solutions that are not so great? Use tools like Google Trends or Exploding Topics. Great, great tool to figure out if these ideas, if these solutions are being researched.

4:14The second thing we want to validate is the solution. Does your solution actually address the problem better than what's already out there? There's no point in trying to launch a product or service that's inferior or at best the same as the competition. Then you're just like fighting for scraps. You don't want to be in that battle. This is where testing and feedback comes in. I'm going to give you an example in a moment of all these validations in a moment how to do them. But we want to test in the real world and get feedback to see if the solution actually addresses the problem enough for people to want to pay for it happily.

4:48Number three, validate the market. Is there enough money to be made in this market? Is there enough money to make your business sustainable and profitable? Okay, this is important because we want to get into a business and go after a market that really doesn't have enough TAM, which is total addressable market. For example, if there's only a thousand people that want this solution and you want to make $10 million, it's going to be quite hard for you to serve a market that small. So how do you do this? Well, you look for competitors. Yes, competitors are a good sign that money is being spent in this space, that there's enough people giving away or taking their dollar out of their wallet and giving it to companies so that they can have a solution to that problem.

5:30So let me give you an example of how I implemented this in my own business, My software company, Webinar Ninja, that I started back in 2014, that I built and scaled to over 30 ,000 users over 10 years. And then we recently got acquired by a big company called ProProfs. When I started Webinar Ninja back in 2014, I noticed people were already running webinars but are struggling with the existing tools. In fact, they were using several tools to pull off a successful webinar. In order to run a webinar, you have to market the webinar with landing pages, collect email addresses, send out emails so that people know where to go.

6:02You have to have a live stream. You need to record that live stream. You need to send out that replay. You need to see some statistics. You may want to have some sort of interaction during the actual webinar. So as you can see, there's a lot of moving parts, a lot of pieces of software coming together to make this event happen. So what I decided to do to make sure that people actually want when I'm creating a better solution to running webinars is I pre-sold Webinar Ninja before building it. I created a simple landing page and offered early access to people. And this helped me prove two things.

6:33This is what I mean by gathering evidence, making sure I have facts on my side. Again, I did this to prove two things. People wanted a better solution, like they're looking for it. And when they saw it, they're like, hey, I want to try this out. And they're willing to pay for it before it's even in existence. So people put down$250 in my case as a deposit so that they can get a spot to get a license to my software when it was ready in four months. So the learning here and the action step for you to take action right now is to run a quick test. Create a simple landing page explaining your product and collect email addresses to gauge interest.

7:09By the way, a landing page is a simple page on a website where it's just describing what you're offering. Give me your name and email address as like a waiting list. This is a good kind of primer. And then when you have the email addresses, you can make an offer to them and say, hey, would you like to pre-buy or would you like to get early access? Please put a deposit. it. This is a rubber meeting the road and you can see people are willing to pay for it. Part three, prove there's money to be made. All right. We're now gathering more and more evidence that, hey, this idea has legs and it could potentially help me succeed as an entrepreneur.

7:43So if your business idea doesn't have a path of profitability, it's not a business. It's a hobby. That's just the bottom line. So you need to make sure that there's money to be made here. So how do you prove that? Start small. You can do what I did. Pre-sell your product or your service. guarantees some customers where they can just even put like a 10 % deposit and then they can pay the rest. It just shows that they're willing to part with some money to get a solution to, they're interested enough to actually just put some money down. Another thing you can do is talk to potential customers and ask if they would pay for something that you're offering.

8:13Just one-on-one on a video call or in person or via email. And then if they say yes, your next thing is say, great, would you mind putting down a deposit? If I was selling a t-shirt and somebody said, I love your t-shirts. I'd love to buy one. Awesome. How about you give me$25. It's$45 for the t-shirt. Give me$25. And then when the t-shirt is created and is delivered, you can give me the rest of the money. If somebody says yes to that, you know, they are a customer. There's money to be made here. The whole point I'm trying to drill in here in this third part of proving that money can be made is you want a business that's easy to run.

8:48You want a business that's easy to sell a product and service. You don't have to convince your customers constantly and cajole them into buying it. You want customers when they discover your product, they're like throwing money at you. They're like, hey, I need this. Can you please give it to me? I'm willing to part money right now and give you money that I worked hard for, for you to give me a spot or give me early access or send it to me as soon as it's available. That's the type of business you want. If you don't have that on your side, you're going to have a very hard time moving forward. But if you do have that, then you have proven that this business is worth pursuing.

9:23When I pre-sold Urban Ninja. I sent out an email to my email list. People bought access to the software before it was ready. I used that money as seed capital to clean up my software and make it ready for commercial use. About four to five months later, I gave them access. I got feedback from them. We improved the product over and over, year after year. The rest is history. You get the point. I did this because I didn't have any money. I didn't have investors. I didn't have any savings. I did it because I had to. And because I had to, in the process, I proved that people are willing to spend money on this product.

9:54And I was able to get some upfront capital to get things going. So as an action set, prove people want to buy what you have. Pre-sell the idea, start an email list, get that landing page together, right? If they're willing to pay upfront and they're able to sign up and get the product later, that is amazing proof that your business, your concept is something that they want, something that they need. But if people won't pay upfront for something, you need to rethink your concept. There's a risk here that you're going to work on and build it, invest in it. And then when you do offer to people, people are not willing to pay for it.

10:28This is why I'm saying that maybe it's not all the money, but maybe just a deposit, even if it's just like, you know, 10 % deposit, just to see if they're willing to spend some money in the promise of committing to, hey, I'm going to buy this thing when it's ready. Part four, ignore the noise, but listen to the data. Listen, everybody in this world thinks are an expert, including your friends and family. And there is going to be some truth to what they say, but you need to prove what's true and what's not true. You got to listen and not get discouraged, right? It's easy to get discouraged when people doubt your idea.

10:59But remember, skepticism can be helpful. It can force you to validate and refine your concept. So here's some tips when it comes to this. You want to ignore opinions that aren't backed by facts. What I mean by that is that when somebody says something to you and say, this idea won't work, ask them why. And then if they say why, Go and find out if that why is true. If it is true, then you need to find a solution to that or move on. If it isn't true, great, but you need to prove that your idea is true. Your beliefs are true. Your reasons for why it will work are true. Back it with facts, data. The second thing you really should just focus on is gathering as much data from potential customers and not critics, okay?

11:37A lot of us ask for friends and family, and there's a good chance that your product or service is not for your friends and family. It's for a specific type of person with specific needs. Talk to those people, get the information, get validation that they are actually serious and would love to buy what you have. And what I found is the best way to silence doubters is with results. So Hasan, who asked today's question, building a business when everyone says it won't work, it's challenging, right? But it's not impossible. And by the way, get used to it. The more and more you start growing as an entrepreneur, the more and more you start building and achieving, the more people are going to doubt you, the more people are going to say that's impossible.

12:18They can't relate to where you want to go. Right. And this is something that I learned the hard way as I became an entrepreneur. I lost a lot of friends. I lost touch with a lot of my family members. Luckily, not my close family. But the point is that people start seeing you like an alien. They don't understand what you're doing and how you would be doing that. And why would anybody rational take the risks or believe in these ideas? But we're a special bunch entrepreneurs. We're people that believe we can create things out of thin air and we do it, right? But we do it based on facts. We do it based on research.

12:49We don't just roll the dice and hope for the best. Don't fall in love with the idea. Prove your idea is going to have legs. Build an evidence-based case for your idea, right? Prove there's money to be made by pre-selling and testing with real customers. Ignore the noise, but listen to the data. And here's the thing. You don't need everyone to believe in your idea. You just need the right customers to believe in Thanks for tuning into the$100 MBA show. If today's lesson resonated with you and you want more practical business lessons, just hit that subscribe button and you get access to over 2 ,500 business lessons.

13:21You can check out all our archives over at 100mba.net. So whether you're listening on Apple or Spotify or any podcast app or watching on YouTube, hit that subscribe or follow button so you get our next episode automatically. Remember, we publish three days a week, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So make sure you don't miss an episode and keep moving forward in building and growing and scaling that business. I'm Omar Zanom and I'll see you in the next episode.