You are listening to the 10 Minute Entrepreneur podcast with host Sean Castrina.

All right, today's podcast is the five musts of the successful startup.

We always wonder why 90% of all these startups fail by year 10.

50% fail by year two to three.

It just depends where you're looking at your statistics.

But what we all know is that startups fail at a ridiculous rate.

And I'm going to share with you the five musts and the one that over just overrides all of them.

And this will tell you, you know, if you should move forward with one of your ideas or maybe you need to pause or maybe you need to start working on yourself.

The first thing is you have to have a great idea.

And what is a great idea? It is a profitable idea.

It means there's a demand for what it is.

You have this idea. That's great. But is there a demand for it? Is somebody wanting to buy it?

Number two, is there a margin?

I'm going through a few things because a proper idea needs to have a few characteristics.

And as there's a demand for it, there's a nice margin in it between what it costs to either offer it, to build it, to create it.

And then number three, is there traction early with your marketing?

In other words, are you attracting customers really fast?

It's great that people want it, but do you know how to reach out to that customer and bring them into your orbit?

So that's the problem. There could be a tremendous demand, but you don't know how to take advantage of it.

You don't know how to market it. You don't know how to capture them. You don't know how to retarget them.

You haven't figured out how to make the marketing work.

So a profitable idea, again, is the first characteristic you must have for a great startup.

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