The Entrepreneur Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in America’s startup scene contribute answers to timely questions about entrepreneurship and careers. Today’s answer to the question “What’s something you wish you knew before starting your business?” Is written by Andrew Ackerman, managing director of Dreamit New York.
Something that never ceases to amaze me is how an idea will arise and suddenly come at me from several directions at once. Other entrepreneurs all swear to have come up with that same idea independently, and I believe them—it’s happened to me more than once.
To be clear, I’m not talking about x-for-y variations (e.g., Airbnb for cats or Uber for bicycles). I’m talking about genuinely new ideas. My theory is that startup concepts each rest on a set of memes and technical capabilities. When all of the relevant building blocks are in place, conditions are ripe for that startup concept to be discovered. And with enough really smart entrepreneurs actively and constantly alert for new opportunities, it’s only natural that several of them will come up with the idea simultaneously and independently.
That said, there are some startup concepts that are truly out of left field—that leapfrog a lot of these building blocks. So how do you know if you have a really revolutionary breakthrough or a more garden-variety disruption?
See also: Here’s Why You’re so Discouraged With Your Career
You start by searching. Before you build—before you even model your business in Excel—spend some time Googling up any possible description of the idea you have in mind. In many cases, you’ll find that four or five companies on the first results page are already doing it, and you can simply move on to the next idea.
If you don’t find anything, try searching using keywords that describe the problem you’re solving as opposed to keywords describing the solution you’re proposing. You may find direct competitors that way. At the very least, you’ll better understand how your prospective customers currently relieve the pain point, and you can assess whether you’re a quantum level better or simply an incremental improvement. (Hint: It’s really hard to get attention, much less change user behavior without a clear, compelling, and overwhelming benefit.)
If the field still looks open, go to AngelList and read the short description of every startup in the same sector or sectors that you cover. Yes, read every single one. Every. Single. One.
If you still think you have something new and awesome, go out there and talk to as many smart people as you can, especially if they’re investors or customers on the space.
Don’t worry about them stealing your idea. Most of the people you speak to will never quit their day job, and about 1% will be entrepreneurs with their own ideas. They aren’t going to suddenly look at their startup and think, “My baby isn’t so cute after all. Let’s go steal his baby.”‘ Perhaps one in 1,000 will be entrepreneurs with the right skills, connections, and availability to run with your idea, and it will be immediately obviously who they are. Don’t sweat it.
Instead of worrying about people stealing your idea, ask them to break it. Ask them to tear it apart and show you all of the ways it can fail. And if they can break your idea—and you can’t fix it—thank them. They’ve just saved you years of your life and a lot of money chasing a doomed venture.
If after all this you find that you have something genuinely new, compelling, and unbroken, let me tell you about Dreamit’s accelerator program.
Andrew is a recovering consultant-turned serial entrepreneur, startup mentor, and angel investor. He has founded two companies and has a keen appreciation for how hard it is to build a successful startup, even under the best of circumstances. Andrew is currently the managing director for Dreamit’s New York accelerator program.
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