Evaulate Your Ideas, Please

As ambitious individuals, my team and I sought to create a tech startup towards the end of high school. Along the way, we learned many valuable lessons that we wanted to share with other students also considering seriously building a startup. This first article goes specifically into the ideation process of a startup, while the second dives into other highly important insights. That article can be found here.

Tips On Evaluating Ideas

For many of us, the thought of starting a long-term project with the goal of making a profit is exciting. It’s easy to just jump right into building, without considering if the product is something people want/need. Before going all in on one idea, here are the questions to ask yourself and your team:

What is my goal?

For some, it might just be to build something out for fun. In this case, it’s ok to spend less time evaluating how good the idea is and just jump into it. For those serious and perhaps looking to get funding however, look to the next questions.

Do people really want/need this?

We always like our own ideas. However, good ideas on paper don’t always pan out to the real world. In Zero to One, Peter Thiel explains that startups generally fall into two categories: those that improve on existing innovations, and those that create something completely new and groundbreaking.

With the first category, there’s a clear market since customers are already familiar with similar products, and larger companies may want to acquire an improved version. Still, is it something worth switching to? Most don’t like change, so your product must be good enough and easy to adopt.

The second category faces even bigger challenges. It’s not just about building something new, but also getting others to use a completely new product and pay for it. This is why you need to test your ideas with others before committing to details. Development isn’t just building, but also the process of continuous testing and improvement.

If it is needed, is it proprietary?

We’ve seen in recent times many AI startups becoming obsolete as big names like ChatGPT introduce new features that replicate the functionality of these startups. If you don’t have any special tech involved, can you carve out a space that specializes in something where bigger companies couldn’t just adapt to?

Take BeReal as an example. While major platforms have implemented similar features emphasizing authenticity, they can’t change their entire business model to match BeReal’s identity. BeReal’s singular focus on authenticity gives a consistent experience that bigger platforms struggle to match. That being said, they still faced significant challenges in its early stages, competing with similar sized platforms for the spotlight, and it was up to other factors like aggressive marketing that led to their success.

Meanwhile with our venture, we had two challenges: We were in an oversaturated market, and our core product was a feature, not an app. A bigger competitor could just add the feature to their app, rendering ours irrelevant. Make sure you keep these things in mind when thinking about your product.

What’s the competitive landscape?

This was touched on in previous points, but if your product has many competitors, you NEED a way to differentiate. What makes your product stand out? Is it targeting a specific culture, age group, self-identity, or even location? Yes, there is an advantage if your product is the first of its kind, but it will take careful execution, strategic marketing, and timing to fight the uphill battle ahead.

Who is your audience?

Building off the last point, who are you building for? Your audience will not only determine your product design, but also your profitability. For product design, what are specific pain points that this group has that your product will solve? And for evaluating profitability potential, I like to look towards YouTube ads. Why are YouTubers paid more for making videos targeted towards middle-age people as opposed to teenagers? Well, who usually has more money to spend?

Can you actually make it?

Do you or your team have the knowledge and time to build the product out? For example, as students out of high school, we wouldn’t have been able to create a proprietary cybersecurity system with our knowledge (more on teams in the second article).

And if you’re hoping to secure funding, keep in mind that most people evaluate a team's credibility and potential before committing to high-risk ventures like startups. Even the best ideas can easily crumble under poor execution, so it’s important to have a realistic plan for how to begin and deal with challenges along the way.

Talk To Others About It!

Ideas are everywhere, but actually building them out takes time and hard work, not something everyone wants to or can do. Don’t be afraid to reach out to friends and mentors — they might have valuable insights and suggestions for your product.

Conclusion

This is such an important topic to consider. Choosing not to execute a dead-end startup could save you hundreds of hours of work. That being said, there are steps you can take to make things work out. More tips on building out our startup can be found in Part 2, Building a High School Startup - Key Insights.