In another episode a guy told a short story about his friend who launched a web site called diapers.com. Who ever had recently followed the news would know that this was a very successful startup sold to amazon for several hundreds of million dollars. He didn’t launch it because he had the better diapers. Neither are diapers a very cool product. But he saw the economic chance in selling ordinary diapers a little cheaper than others do. So his idea was making common processes more efficient and every day products more inexpensive. So the right idea does not necessarily have to be a product which will convince in every single nuance. Although this sort of startup is more or less reserved for people with a certain insight into the corresponding industry and processes, this is not an indispensable must. There are several examples of people who offer every day products a little cheaper than others do and made a fortune with it (or at least a good deal of money). I call this type of entrepreneurs the economists. They think in economic patterns looking for the possibility to improve established processes. The product is secondary. The other sort of entrepreneurs I call the idealists. They see a problem and want to “help” in a way. So maybe, when thinking of new ideas for a venture, think in both directions.

This is a guest post by Markus who is an aspiring web-entrepreneur. He currently runs Haushaltsreport (www.haushaltsreport.de) and Wishsite (www.wishsite.de).

My family likes security, I like security. Having a steady income, a regular, well paid job has always seemed to me like the right thing to do. I ventured out in the unknown fields of the ‘internet’ in 2001 and started my own website (www.movie-trade.com) which is no longer online but was quite a success back then. I had only run it for a few months when the german magazine ‘Stern’ called up to do an interview with me. The whole project was a bit of a grey area thing as it provided users a platform they could use to exchange movies. I thought that having an article in a magazine like ‘Stern’ would certainly not make this any easier so I decided to sell it to a random guy at a ridiculously low price. Since then I have thought about starting a new project so many times but have not managed to overcome my fears of not having enough money, not finishing my studies and of course of just failing. I am clearly a chicken! And being a chicken in business sucks!

I am now in a position where all those fatal flaws are basically gone. I got enough money, I finished my studies, I got no one to support. So why not start my own business? Well … I will … kind of … But what should I work on? I don’t really know yet. So I thought why not figure that out while blogging about my ideas, thoughts and work? I bet know there are thousands  of people out there who are chickens when it comes to starting a new business – just like me. I truly believe that there is a way to overcome our fears and on my way to being a (hopefully successful?) entrepreneur I will share videos, interviews, links, ideas, concepts, … with you. Because I have realized something: being a chicken in business sucks!