The Best Startups Defy Reality
By: Dan Gudema
Tags: Digital Marketing Agency, SEO, Startup, Online Marketing, Entrepreneurship

Photo by Giorgio Trovato on Unsplash

As we reach into a new era for my tech startup, SEO Turbo Booster, I had an interesting experience talking with a potential customer, partner, advisor. He gave me the talk, that I was doing something not viable, not even possible, and not something he would consider. But I told him he was not my customer, so don’t sweat it. I told him whatever we do, it’s because customers want it and pay for it, and that’s that. I had no reason to argue with him. I told him in some ways I agree, but overall I don’t. But I thanked profusely because my philosophy on this is if they disagree, it may actually be a good thing!

For the last 3 years, I have been building a tech startup, bootstrapping, finding out what customers want, need and have to have. Dozens of customers later, with a product-market fit, we are selling virtual products, every week! It happens to be in a very crowded, fragmented field, yet the future is bright. I work in niche marketing automation software for SEO. And we are just getting started.

What I loved about my conversation with this guy is he just wanted to talk with me to basically refute what I do and why what I do makes no sense. And if I was in his shoes I may have agreed. But I am not. I told him that he can be completely correct for himself, for his market. This guy is a black belt in SEO. He is not in the SEO field but like many entrepreneurs and marketers and business owners he has studied to become a guru in SEO, mainly to save on hiring one! I get it. My answer is people pay for our software because they are not black belts, they are white or green belts and they will never be black belts. We help them get to the next level without all the expertise or hiring expertise through automation software.

My failure over years to really understand what is a serious startup opportunity and what is not has not changed. I don’t know anything really. I am not a magician or can see the future. But one thing that I can gladly tell you is if there are many saying what you are doing is not possible, or not feasible, or not realistic, while it may actually all be true, there is a larger truth. That larger truth is everything that appears to be difficult, or not possible, may actually be a better opportunity than one that is a clear path. Clear paths like understanding how to sell a product on Amazon or to build an e-commerce site to mimic Amazon, Shopify, or WordPress is easy to construct philosophically. But it will ultimately fail if you just mimic. I can attest to this truth since I have consulted on dozens of startups. What you need to do as a tech startup is a search for startup areas that seem like crap; that nobody wants to do, especially if the end results are valuable. The more difficult, the more arcane, the nuttier level of understanding by competition, the more room for growth and getting sh_t done without the competition around you. That’s how I see it. Not every opportunity is visible to the naked eye. Not every opportunity is on the front page of Techcrunch.

If you think AirBNB or Uber were clearly great ideas from the beginning, you’d be wrong. If you read their early history, like many startups, they are questionable if they will get where they want to go, and questionable if the market really is there. And even more so, they may have pivoted a few times.

I was reading through a book by Warren Struhl (not a guy you all would know unless you live and work in Boca Raton!); actually I was sitting in Warren’s office years ago when I picked up Warren’s book (how else would I have read it) and he admitted he sat with Tony Hsieh of Zappos in the beginning when Tony was looking for seed capital and told Tony nobody would sell shoes on the web. My buddy Adam Kravitz, working on Jdate, told me an early investor said that people would never want to meet dates on the web and give up now it won’t work!

If you were to take everything people think about what you are going to try to do in your tech startup and actually listened to what they think about the way the world works today, you would never get anywhere. It’s all about will somebody pay for it. If they will and its legal, it’s viable!

And that’s the issue. You don’t know till you know.

I have been wrong myself about 100 startup ideas, starting right at the very beginning of the web. I never thought people would pay enough for building a website so I did not become a web developer early on. (The year was 1995). I ignored guys starting hosting companies in 1996. I remember my MBA teacher telling us people were creating hosting companies. I did not get it. I never got it. Take this missed opportunity list and times it by 100. I am a 100X loser! But I did get involved in a speed dating startup because of my partner in 2001. But not something I knew would be big. When I didn’t know, it actually happened. That is how the world works sometimes!

I ended up a web developer by 1999. I slaved as a worker, manager, corporate director. I can tell you life in a startup is so much mentally better for me than a real corporate job. But we don't know what we don't know. Sadly corporate life seems to be the problem. It made me ignorant and blind. We don’t know what is next. I never thought people in the entire world would be turned upside down by this pandemic. It happened. There are so many unknowns in this world. The only thing you can do, if you run a tech startup is to make a decision and stick with your vision if you believe in it.

The truth is people fail all the time, but often not because of their vision, but rather cash flow, misuse of funds, mismanagement, a bad idea, or just bad luck. Yes, many ways to fail or learn if you look at it that way. In the startup world, we have a saying, “You just have to be successful one time”.

There may be many ways to fail, but there are many ways to succeed. Look for the thing that nobody wants to do, and then do it well and find a way to scale!

Our website is https://www.seoturbobooster.com. We make Saas solutions that enable digital agencies and value-added resellers to automate their web landing page generation. We are looking for digital agencies to join our partner program and we are looking for VARS or companies that market to or sell to 10s, 100s, 1000s+ websites in niche industries. Think specialized Godaddy. If that is you, get in touch. One way is dan@seoturbobooster.com!

Have a great holiday season, lay low during the pandemic, live long, and prosper! If you follow me on Medium.com I will send you a free code for my new nonfiction book coming out soon.