Will You Create The Next Facebook?

Posted on 05. Jun, 2008 by Adam in Entrepreneurship

Jason Pereira blogs at The University Kid and is currently running a gigantic contest for what he hopes will be the next big thing. Check it out!

Hello all, and thanks to Adnan for allowing me to guest post on this kick ass blog. :)

Today I thought I’d talk about a topic that most entrepreneurs are interested in – launching the next big thing. Everyone wishes that they had been the brains behind Facebook, behind Twitter, behind WordPress…websites that fulfill simple needs but are amongst the most popular websites out there.

You see, as entrepreneurs we strive to be better than everyone else – in very few other industries in the world can you have your name known by millions in less than a few short years. You will constantly hear stories about entrepreneurs launching ideas that sound like they can really kick off. How can you launch your huge project, one that you will want to develop into one of the largest online?

Do Not Rush

I have this problem when getting together a new project – I get all excited about it and want to get things done instantly, even though that is usually not possible. I used to end up rushing and the whole project suffers as a result.

Do not make the same mistakes! Make sure that you set yourself achievable goals, and stick to that time frame – make it challenging enough so that you’re not sitting on your behind all day, but make your time frame long enough so that you’re not cramming to get the job done.

Remember to take breaks during your work as taking just five minutes to clear your mind can bring you a lot more ideas than if you worked nonstop for ten hours.

Leverage The Skills Of Others

There are some things I’m just not very good at, no matter how hard I try – design and coding being two of them. Very few people are good at everything, and if you cannot do a task that you need, hire freelancers. Remember that in business, time is money and if you spend all day working on something that would take a freelancer twenty minutes to do, you are losing money.

Work on the things that you are strong at, and let someone do the others. If you are scared about people stealing your ideas, make sure you sign a non-disclosure agreement before hand and only use people that look trustable. You can get a good idea of the quality of a person by looking at his/her ratings on websites like Get A Freelancer and Digital Point.

If you want to create the next Facebook, Myspace or whatever, just remember you cannot do it all alone, especially if you want it to grow – you will need help at some point or another, so why not start getting it from the beginning?

Aim Big

Most projects you launch will fail. That is a fact – although you want every idea of yours to become big, very few of them will be.

However, do not get discouraged by this – remember, every learning experience adds to you as the web entrepreneur and even if you do not create the next big thing… so what? I’d be happy if one of my websites had just 0.0001% of what success Google has had.

If you aim big, wanting your website to be the best in the world but you fall short, you’ve still achieved a lot. If however, you start off your project with shaky ambitions, aiming low, you will only achieve low. Most famous entrepreneurs today had nothing before their one idea hit it off, and they’re no better than you. So if they can do it, why can’t you?

Do Not Be Scared of Competition

This is one of the biggest complaints I hear by entrepreneurs whenever I speak to them about projects their launching “I can’t compete“, “It’ll cost too much” or “My competition is far more established”.

Get rid of those excuses now. There are solutions to everything; if you do not have one, keep looking until you find it.

I love competition. It gives me something to aim at and measure my success by, and it also reminds me not to laze around and get into gear as soon as possible – if I don’t work hard today, someone will take my place tomorrow. Embrace your competitors – heck, you can even learn from them – and you will do far better than you think you will.

Be Organised

If you could see my work desk at the moment you’d accuse me of being a horrible hypocrite, however, one of the biggest things you need to do when attempting to launch a huge project is be organized. Haven’t I said that time is money? Well, if you’re not organized you are wasting time, and leaving money on the table.

Simple things like getting a notepad from your local grocery store to write things down; keeping a planner of events and even setting a timer on your desk to ensure that you do not waste time on things that are not helping you can give you a tremendous kick start in the business.

There are various programs online that can help you organize yourself more. One of the ones I use is Fruitful Time Task Manager and although it costs a little bit, it is worth it. However, there are plenty of free options available if you do a Google search.

Use these five tips and you will be well on your way to creating a killer project that will take off. No matter what your project is, as long as you are confident in the idea behind it and have the necessary tools, you will succeed. Remember that you can always look for funding if your idea is good enough – quite a few large projects in the blogosphere today (Entrecard for one) have gone down this route. Good luck!

Recommended: Finance your new project with a business loan from Rapid Advance.

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