5 Milestones On Your Startup’s Path From Big Idea to Valuable Company

How to go from idea to reality to viability to scalability

No matter how much experience we entrepreneurs have, it seems like we always struggle with the hugeness of our ideas. Most of the time, we can’t quite articulate exactly how disruptive, game-changing, and far-reaching our ideas are, but we’re all convinced that those ideas have unlimited potential.

The problem is this: When we’re working on something that’s never been done before, it can sometimes seem impossible to figure out the proper next step to take. We want to exploit the full potential of our massive idea, but we fear getting caught up in wild goose chases that might lead us nowhere.

Building a business is like controlling an explosion. In the dark. With a lot of people around. It’s easy for an entrepreneur to get paralyzed trying to determine which new feature to build, which new market to tap, or whether it’s time to pivot.

When that happens to me, I fall back on some strategic tools I’ve been using my entire 20-plus-year career as an entrepreneur. There are different tools for each milestone in the startup maturation cycle, a cycle that starts with the original idea and takes it through reality to viability and, ultimately, to scalable success.