How I Learned to Stop Chasing Unicorns and Build a Real Business
I used to think being a founder was about having a brilliant, world-changing idea. You know the type: the kind that looks great in a headline, the kind that gets investors excited, the kind that feels like you’re inventing the future.
Then I watched two of my own "brilliant" ideas go up in flames. And I saw countless other founders do the same, clinging to their "vision" as their bank accounts drained to zero.
Then I realized something: we were all doing it wrong.
The Problem with "Cool Ideas"
Most startup advice is wrapped in the myth of the genius inventor. "Disrupt the market," "create a new category," "build a 10x product." It’s no wonder so many founders end up building complicated solutions for problems nobody actually has.
The real issue isn't that you need a revolutionary idea—it's that the "coolest" ideas are often poison. They’re shiny, exciting, and incredibly easy to fall in love with. But they’re usually a nightmare to build and even harder to sell.
The Brutal Lessons from Two Failures
I recently stumbled upon a founder's story that put this into sharp focus. Let’s call him Dom. He spent four years learning this lesson the hard way.
First, he built a "Netflix for entrepreneurs." Sounds cool, right? But it was a disaster. His co-founder bailed, and he learned that a content business is a hamster wheel of constant creation. It’s a hits-driven business, not a utility.
Next, he built a Web3 platform for real-life discounts. Even cooler. More futuristic. It failed in four months. He was trying to invent a market from scratch with a co-founder who, once again, wasn't all in.
These weren't just bad luck. They were symptoms of chasing novelty. He wasn't solving a real, painful problem. He was trying to will a cool idea into existence. He finally understood that "never give up" was the wrong advice. The real skill is knowing when to get off a dead horse.
What Actually Works: Three Rules That Don't Suck
For his third try, Dom threw out the "disruption" playbook. He followed a few simple, almost boring, rules that led him to $500k in annual revenue in just eight months.
1. Work With People You Actually Trust
Instead of partnering with another near-stranger, he chose co-founders he’d known for years. People he’d already been through tough times with.
A startup is too fragile to be learning your co-founder's character on the fly. You need to know how they handle pressure before you're running out of cash.
The key: Your founding team should feel like a long-term marriage, not a first date.
2. Make Something That Makes People Money
His new idea was painfully simple: "We help Shopify brands make more sales with WhatsApp."
That’s it. No jargon. No Web3 fantasies. Just a straight line from his product to his customer’s revenue. Compare that to his old ideas. One is a tool for profit; the others were science projects. When your value is that clear, marketing writes itself and customers instantly get it.
The key: If you can't explain how your product helps someone in one sentence, you don't have a messaging problem—you have a business problem.
3. Innovate on Distribution, Not Invention
His winning idea wasn't new. WhatsApp marketing for e-commerce existed. But he saw that most solutions were clunky, expensive, or not focused on the European market. He just decided to do it better for a specific group of people.
This is the cheat code most founders ignore. They want to be a visionary. But the most durable companies often just take an existing, validated problem and build a cleaner, more focused solution for a niche that bigger players are ignoring.
The key: Stop trying to invent the future. Find a hot market and build a better shovel.
What This Actually Looks Like
Here's the part of the story that really hit me. Even with the right idea, Dom's team almost blew it.
They spent six months building a version of the product they thought was clever. But when they started pitching it—before it was even finished—they got a surprise. Customers loved the concept, but they hated the team's execution. They wanted something much simpler.
So they did the thing most founders are too proud to do: they threw away all their code and started over, building the product exactly how their first potential customers described it.
Result: They built something the market was desperately pulling from them. Not because they were brilliant inventors, but because they were good listeners.
Getting Started (Without the Playbooks)
So how did they get customers? No "growth hacks." No "viral loops." Just gritty, consistent work.
Talked to people on LinkedIn. They didn't just spam. They shared useful stuff and started real conversations.
Sent cold emails. The old-fashioned way. Focused on being helpful, not just making a sale.
Partnered with agencies. They found marketing agencies who already had their ideal customers and gave them a cut to refer them. Simple.
Closed deals on the demo call. When a customer said "yes," they didn't send a follow-up email. They set the tool up right then and there, capturing the customer's excitement and cutting the sales cycle from weeks to minutes.
That's it. No "covert ops." No "value bombs." Just showing up consistently and being useful.
The Long Game (And Knowing When to Cash Out)
After eight months of insane growth, they sold the company.
At first, this seems crazy. Why sell a rocket ship? Because their entire business was built on two platforms they didn't control: WhatsApp and Shopify. If either of those giants changed the rules, their business could disappear overnight. That’s called platform risk.
They traded uncertain future growth for a life-changing payday. They didn't quit. They de-risked and leveled up, ready to play a bigger game next time.
The Bottom Line
Building a successful company works when it doesn't feel like you're trying to bend the world to your will. When you're genuinely solving a painful, existing problem for a specific group of people, they want you to succeed. When you're just there to push your cool idea, they can tell.
The best startup strategy doesn't feel like a strategy at all. It feels like finding a group of people with a headache and being the one who happens to have the aspirin.
And that's not a framework you can hack—it's just listening.