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Five years ago, coaching was really big in Romania. It was like a trend. A lot of my friends were consuming it and all of them had very positive results. "This coaching thing really works", they were telling me. And I had to agree, coaching, when done well, really works.

But some of my friends were so excited that they decided to become certified coaches and start a consulting business. A startup, of sorts. The main reason was that they "found something that really works. I'm a living proof that it works."

As of today, I don't know if 10% of them are still having their own business in coaching. Many are employed by other coaching companies or shifted careers completely.

You Need More Than One Client

I call this "the one client startup" and it goes beyond the coaching example. Many aspiring entrepreneurs are building their future startup on a one person user case: themselves. Just because they found something that works, it doesn't mean they have the skills to take that as the business level. Because it takes a lot more skills and attention to transform something that "works" into a business process. Nobody denies the fact that may have found something that works for them. But that's not a guarantee that it will work for an entire market. And as a business you need an entire market, otherwise you're just a hobby.

Also, there's nothing wrong with having hobbies. Like, you know, tinkering with a raspberry pi during weekends and building fancy stuff to show off in front of your friends. By all means, do that. I'm doing it and I'm enjoying it tremendously. But try not to mistake that "thing" you did and you enjoyed doing so much, with a potential business. It takes much, much more than that. A business needs validation from many, many other sources.

There are a few established approaches that are very helpful, such as the "Lean Startup" methodology. I used it a lot in many accelerator or hackathons and I'm happy I was able to stop the building of a few "one client startups" before any serious damage has been done. If you want to know more, I recommend the book by Eric Ries (non-affiliate link, obviously). It's a mandatory reading for anyone willing to take a few shortcuts on this startup thing.

Based on that book, which contains many useful concepts (like minimum viable product, continuous deployment, etc) a few other tools were built. I'm specifically keen on the Business Model Canvas, which is a diagram created to split your idea into actionable sections. The featured image of this post is exactly that. Have a look at it and play for a while. You'll be surprised by the clarity and structure you will get.

Another approach I use, when I spot a potentially limited business, is to ask entrepreneurs to bring me at least two paying customers in maximum two weeks. "Just find someone that will buy the product, or your service as it is right now, for as much as you want, but let it be a transaction somewhere. It can be somebody from the family, a neighbor, a friend, doesn't matter, but do engage in a financial transaction with somebody else and come back to me after that."

Many of them never come back.

This post is part of a 5 articles series. If you want to have a look at the previous startup mistakes, here's the list:

• Top 5 Most Common Startup Mistakes: Let’s Build 1746 Features in the First Alpha, They’ll Be Hooked
• Top 5 Most Common Startup Mistakes: Nobody Did This Before, So I Must Be A Genius
• Top 5 Most Common Startup Mistakes: It's Gonna Work Out Because I Know It Will

image source - Wikipedia

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I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.

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