Building a Billion- Dollar business

Building a billion-dollar business




By NOAH KAGAN



EVER since I was a little kid I wanted to be rich. I think most of us do; however, we might not think about how to get there.



I once had a friend who was a child prodigy, highly respected by the Silicon Valley community. His sole goal was to create a billion-dollar business - nothing else mattered. Because of this, he rejected ideas that were either way too small or did not monetise well enough.



He took one year to develop different ideas and one idea in particular grew very large. However, at the end of the year, he threw it all away. This was because despite having millions of users, he had no real product, no value, no love and no engagement. His main problem was that he put the business before the users.



Having spent a lot of time both failing and succeeding, I have assembled some advice for aspiring entrepreneurs on how to build a billion-dollar business.



1. Focus



Focusing on how you can become a big business is the first mistake. Instead, it is better to focus on creating something ultra-valuable to your users.



Focusing on large billion-dollar exits only sets your business too far in the future and misses all the details you need to get there. The question you should be asking your users is, 'How would you feel if we were not around any more?' It is when they answer that they cannot live without it, that you know you have a winner.