Bubba Murarka

Over the past 3 months I’ve been focused on brainstorming and researching different ideas to start a company around.  When I left my job in October without knowing THE idea I was going  after I received a wide variety of reactions.  They boiled down to:

• Yoiks. Are you nuts?
• Wow. That is ballsy / crazy…good luck…let me know how it goes!
• Awesome!  That is the best way to do it. 

Emotionally, I’ve jumped into the first bucket a few times over the past 3 months, but I did what I did because I believe it is the best way for me to actually succeed in my goal.  So in parallel with coming up and researching potential ideas I’ve been trying to codify what makes an idea worth going after.  I admit this is a bit of mental foreplay, but I think it will ultimately help me make a better decision.  Plus it is a great conversation topic with other entrepreneurs that are either a) still defining their idea or b) re-factoring their original idea because it isn’t working (which is not uncommon…one of the reasons I was willing to jump without THE idea). 

I’ve come across a few good blog posts from others on idea criteria that I thought were worth passing along:

• Peter Rip outlines 6 criteria he used with Munjal Shah
• Ev Williams outlines 7 points of evaluation he is kicking around

There are actually a ton of these types of posts a mere search away…all with contradictory opinions!  I’d love to get pointers to any you find particularly interesting as it’ll add to the mental fodder. 

And yes, I’m going to cop out and not write mine out - the links above do a much better job that I could right now.  Happy Holidays!