Come for the Ride!

Over the past several weeks, we’ve been talking with a number of startup entrepreneurs, successful serial entrepreneurs and even angels at helping us better define our venture.  Through the various practice pitches, brainstorming sessions, and chats, we’ve received numerous feedback from just throwing the idea on the table.

If a typical person’s attitude towards giant (evil) corporations is jealousy and hostility, the opposite would be true when they are presented with a startup.

From our networking sessions, it would seem the average attitude towards a nameless startup is the sincere desire to help.  If you’re at that stage, make sure you put yourself out there for others to critique.  While I know many are still weary of asking help from strangers and would like to remain in stealth mode, I would venture to say 9/10 entrepreneurs out there would fail if they don’t at least seek some feedback from their social network.  Every bad or great idea needs some tweaks and this is where brainstorming with like-minded people can be useful.

Let’s face it, unless you’re building a real time machine or teleporter, the chances of someone stealing your idea is probably not that great. Even though we have a passion for our project, we’ve definitely encountered more people who could care less about the idea than people who are plotting to clone it.  In the end, you should still be careful who you go to for advice, but if you stick around in the good neighborhoods, you will probably find more allies than frienemies.