With so many people starting their own businesses, it’s hard to not wonder if that idea at the back of your mind can become something too. However, ideas come in different flavours that should be evaluated differently. The first step is to understand just what your idea represents.

A big distinction is whether if you have a product startup, or a content startup. From the very beginning, this difference will change your approach to nurturing you idea into a business (or discovering that it’s not business-worthy).

Product Startups are about solving a pain.

Your idea may fall into the product category if one of the following applies:

• it is a cool gadget that you wanted to build and use
• it solves a problem common in a specific group of people
• it is a tool that modifies a process of doing things
• it requires an uncommon talent / craft / domain expertise that you possess

People naturally lean towards this as the default model of what a startup is. The concept is simple, find a problem / pain point for a group of people out there. Then provide a product or service which resolves that pain ten times (10x) better than their existing alternatives, as mentioned in Peter Thiel’s Zero to One.

Sometimes, a visionary comes along and discovers a pain that no one is aware of yet, but that doesn’t change the process.

Research well on a problem, and build a 10x better offering that certain groups of people actually want. Tell them of the offering to make initial sales, then listen to their feedback and iterate the offering continuously.

As a potential product startup, you want to:

• study the industry structure, and understand people’s current alternatives
• find a gap in existing solutions, or discover an alternate view where no solutions exist yet
• tailor your idea to research findings, and define an unique value that it brings to users
• devise a test to validate that your defined unique value is actually valuable to corresponding users

Content Startups are about engaging a community.

Your idea may fall into the content category if one of the following applies:

• it involves giving advice or expertise on a subject, much like consulting
• it reaches out to a specific group, but you can’t pinpoint a problem that group is experiencing

There are times when the product startup approach just doesn’t feel right. A strong signal is if you cannot point out a specific problem for your group, or the solution for an identified problem is not systematic (differs on a case-by-case basis).

Consultants often find themselves in this category, when the craft is not the ability to solve a problem, but to conduct problem-solving in a general field. There is no immediately clear solution that applies to every user. It is best then to start by rallying these users as a community, as explored in Joe Pulizzi’s Content Inc.

Build up an audience, provide value, and curate it into an active community. Then listen to the audience for their pains for potential product opportunities.

As a potential content startup, you want to:

• define an audience whom you can provide value to, typically from your industry of expertise
• brainstorm about advices or discussions that can provide benefit audience members
• always offer 1-on-1 consulting service as call to action for early monetization
• eventually build workshops, materials, products for your audience to scale your offerings

No matter if a product approach or content approach is more suitable for your idea, be very cautious if you are starting with a very specific offering in mind. Avoid the mindset of finding users for your offering, always tailor your idea to the needs of the people.

Because at the end of the day, startups revolve around bringing value to people.