How realistic should your startup goal be?
June 26, 2021
In this episode, we talk about having big goals and realistic plans.
As a starter founder, how realistic should your goals be? And a lot of times when people start speaking, they want to dream big, but then when they're talking to other people, they're a little bit embarrassed because they don't want to dream too big. They want to make it seem like whatever they're trying to achieve is achievable.
So here's the thing, you definitely should be dreaming as big as possible, but to actually make it achievable, you have to do the calculations to see whether it is possible or not, at least mathematically. So let me give you an example. There was recently this one startup that I was speaking to and I was asking them what are their goals and this person barely has a technology, they're about to release it in the app store. It's very rudimentary, it's not really anything proprietary and their goal was to release this app and promote this app using a Tupperware type of party style.
So the plan is this is an app I don't want to give away too much about the app because all this information was said in confidence. So without saying that, I'll kind of give you an idea of the thinking process that went behind the app and where the flaw in the thinking was. So this person definitely thinks big and they want this application to be a massive hit with a lot of people. So I will divulge that this person lives in the greater Houston area. And the entire plan was that they would host these launch parties like Tupperware parties where you promote Tupperware, they would host these launch parties and get people onto their app. And this is the plan.
And when I asked them, how quickly Are they looking to grow and what kind of customer lists are they hoping to get? What size of the customer list are they hoping to get at the end of 12 months? And this person quickly told me that they want three million from Houston alone. And I had to back up a little bit. I said, hold on, the population of Houston itself greater, Houston is probably five million. The city is maybe two million. And out of the five million people that live there. I mean, how many people are actually going to be willing to use your app?
So this app had a very specific application. And if we actually go broad, I would say that this app could go for maybe 30% of the population. Well, if you have a city with a population of five million and 30%, that's around 1.5 million people. And if you plan to get three million people, that's 60% of people in Houston. You're planning on doing this through these Tupperware parties, these launch parties, Right. And it's really difficult for me sometimes when I'm listening to the startup ideas because you don't want to discourage people from following their dreams and you have to do it in a very smart way. But to me that sounded really, really ridiculous because it doesn't sound possible.
So, first of all, their plan of action to be able to take this app from 0 to 3 million. Oh, by the way, I should probably mention that after I kind of mentioned the population of Houston and stuff like that, they said I want 300,000 people. And even 300,000 people. That's a lot of people. That is a really difficult number to get, especially with the plan that they had. So the plan that they had was they would host these parties And at these parties that would have maybe 100, 200 people and they can get these people on their app platform.
But here's the thing, how many parties do you need to hold to be able to get 300,000 people? Let's say that your goal is to get 300,000 people in a year. And if you hosted parties pretty much every single day, Maybe you've hosted 300 days out of the year. So most of the days. Well, you would have to host a party with 1,000 people that will convert at every single party. How sustainable is that? Are you able to hold a party with 1000 people, for every single day for 300 days in a row, or give or take a couple of breaks?
But anyways, 300 parties in one year with 1,000 attendees. And when I say 1,000 attendees, this means that people that are actually converting onto the app. And if you think about The way parties work, not everyone's going to convert right, you might have maybe a 10% conversion rate. So with that in mind, you need to have a party of 10,000 people every single party just for you to get to that 300,000 number. So this person, they had big dreams, big goals, but it was unrealistic in the way that they wanted to unfold it.
I'm not saying that getting 300,000 is impossible. It's definitely possible done there in much smarter ways, but to do it in the way that they were proposing to do these launch parties, the math doesn't add up, it doesn't even make sense. It's not sustainable, you're not gonna be able to do that, it's just not possible. So when we're thinking about creating circumstances for us, and we're coming up with goals and the goals might be subjective at the beginning, you have to back it up with math and have it makes sense. So, if you plan to get 300,000 people, what is your plan to do that? Because if your plan right now is to do these launch parties, and obviously the math doesn't add up. And even after it's been pointed out that the math doesn't add up and you're still following this trajectory, then that tells me that this founder is clueless and probably does not know what they're doing and they're going to run the company to the ground.
If they had a better plan. And they said, for example, well, my cousin is dating Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan, you know, um, agreed to promote this app on Joe Rogan's podcast. Okay, well, yeah, that's definitely going to get 300,000 people. If you have Kim Kardashian on your team, that's definitely gonna get 300,000 people. But, when you're thinking about these possibilities if someone was able to get 300,000 people within 12 months again, which is not impossible, have done the right way. Well, the power to be able to do that, I mean, these are like Kim Kardashian type power's right.
If you look at Kim Kardashian, she probably has 24 million people on her Instagram account. And if she's doing 300,000 people a year, um to get to that 24 million, think about all the time that can put into her reality shows and building her brand and dating celebrities, and making sex tapes and all these different things for her to grow that list really fast, right? And if you're doing it in a way that's not realistic then maybe it's time to go look at your numbers again, re-evaluate what your goals are, and actually come up with a plan worked backwards on how you can approach your goal and meet your goal. This is Robin Copernicus boom bam. I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
So here's the thing, you definitely should be dreaming as big as possible, but to actually make it achievable, you have to do the calculations to see whether it is possible or not, at least mathematically. So let me give you an example. There was recently this one startup that I was speaking to and I was asking them what are their goals and this person barely has a technology, they're about to release it in the app store. It's very rudimentary, it's not really anything proprietary and their goal was to release this app and promote this app using a Tupperware type of party style.
So the plan is this is an app I don't want to give away too much about the app because all this information was said in confidence. So without saying that, I'll kind of give you an idea of the thinking process that went behind the app and where the flaw in the thinking was. So this person definitely thinks big and they want this application to be a massive hit with a lot of people. So I will divulge that this person lives in the greater Houston area. And the entire plan was that they would host these launch parties like Tupperware parties where you promote Tupperware, they would host these launch parties and get people onto their app. And this is the plan.
And when I asked them, how quickly Are they looking to grow and what kind of customer lists are they hoping to get? What size of the customer list are they hoping to get at the end of 12 months? And this person quickly told me that they want three million from Houston alone. And I had to back up a little bit. I said, hold on, the population of Houston itself greater, Houston is probably five million. The city is maybe two million. And out of the five million people that live there. I mean, how many people are actually going to be willing to use your app?
So this app had a very specific application. And if we actually go broad, I would say that this app could go for maybe 30% of the population. Well, if you have a city with a population of five million and 30%, that's around 1.5 million people. And if you plan to get three million people, that's 60% of people in Houston. You're planning on doing this through these Tupperware parties, these launch parties, Right. And it's really difficult for me sometimes when I'm listening to the startup ideas because you don't want to discourage people from following their dreams and you have to do it in a very smart way. But to me that sounded really, really ridiculous because it doesn't sound possible.
So, first of all, their plan of action to be able to take this app from 0 to 3 million. Oh, by the way, I should probably mention that after I kind of mentioned the population of Houston and stuff like that, they said I want 300,000 people. And even 300,000 people. That's a lot of people. That is a really difficult number to get, especially with the plan that they had. So the plan that they had was they would host these parties And at these parties that would have maybe 100, 200 people and they can get these people on their app platform.
But here's the thing, how many parties do you need to hold to be able to get 300,000 people? Let's say that your goal is to get 300,000 people in a year. And if you hosted parties pretty much every single day, Maybe you've hosted 300 days out of the year. So most of the days. Well, you would have to host a party with 1,000 people that will convert at every single party. How sustainable is that? Are you able to hold a party with 1000 people, for every single day for 300 days in a row, or give or take a couple of breaks?
But anyways, 300 parties in one year with 1,000 attendees. And when I say 1,000 attendees, this means that people that are actually converting onto the app. And if you think about The way parties work, not everyone's going to convert right, you might have maybe a 10% conversion rate. So with that in mind, you need to have a party of 10,000 people every single party just for you to get to that 300,000 number. So this person, they had big dreams, big goals, but it was unrealistic in the way that they wanted to unfold it.
I'm not saying that getting 300,000 is impossible. It's definitely possible done there in much smarter ways, but to do it in the way that they were proposing to do these launch parties, the math doesn't add up, it doesn't even make sense. It's not sustainable, you're not gonna be able to do that, it's just not possible. So when we're thinking about creating circumstances for us, and we're coming up with goals and the goals might be subjective at the beginning, you have to back it up with math and have it makes sense. So, if you plan to get 300,000 people, what is your plan to do that? Because if your plan right now is to do these launch parties, and obviously the math doesn't add up. And even after it's been pointed out that the math doesn't add up and you're still following this trajectory, then that tells me that this founder is clueless and probably does not know what they're doing and they're going to run the company to the ground.
If they had a better plan. And they said, for example, well, my cousin is dating Joe Rogan and Joe Rogan, you know, um, agreed to promote this app on Joe Rogan's podcast. Okay, well, yeah, that's definitely going to get 300,000 people. If you have Kim Kardashian on your team, that's definitely gonna get 300,000 people. But, when you're thinking about these possibilities if someone was able to get 300,000 people within 12 months again, which is not impossible, have done the right way. Well, the power to be able to do that, I mean, these are like Kim Kardashian type power's right.
If you look at Kim Kardashian, she probably has 24 million people on her Instagram account. And if she's doing 300,000 people a year, um to get to that 24 million, think about all the time that can put into her reality shows and building her brand and dating celebrities, and making sex tapes and all these different things for her to grow that list really fast, right? And if you're doing it in a way that's not realistic then maybe it's time to go look at your numbers again, re-evaluate what your goals are, and actually come up with a plan worked backwards on how you can approach your goal and meet your goal. This is Robin Copernicus boom bam. I'm out.
Continue your journey with me on my other channels:
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