I’ve had a bunch of great business ideas. Or maybe they were great ideas. In most cases, I’ll never know because I could never get them off the ground. Why? Because they were very complicated.
Building a complicated business isn’t a bad thing at all. For one, complexity means you are benefiting by creating a barrier to entry into your product, service or market. On the other hand, ideas like these tend to require substantial initial capital. That’s why I’m such a big fan of bootstrapping. You preserve equity and force yourself to keep things simple and inexpensive. As you move your idea forward and pull in some revenue, you can reinvest and make your business as complex as you like.
The point of this post is to remind us all that sometimes the easy ideas are some of the best. Take Todd Davis of LifeLock for example. Sure, they raised a bunch of money, but the business itself is so simple it’s genius. A little technology here, a little automation there and marketing that takes advantage of everyone’s media-induced fear of identity theft and you have the perfect money making storm. All of this because they do something that everyone can do for themselves at nearly no cost. But, it’s a pain in the ass so why not pay $10/month or $110/year and let them do it for you? Believe me, lots of people do. LifeLock is a money making machine and now they have lots of copycats.
I used to see businesses like this and think I’m doing something wrong. These ideas would really get me down. Now, I look at them as educational and inspirational. Most important, it reminds me to keep things simple.
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