What does it take to start a company like "Uber"

Well, the things you've mentioned, the idea and investment, are not as easily accessible to everyone as they look at first glance.

Coming up with a revolutionary idea is pretty difficult, even if average folks fantasize that it's simple. And on top of that, often times you need a lot of money to implement it, and persuading investors into it is a skill of its own.

So, while it looks like the founder just woke up one day with to this great idea and a boatload of cash by his bedside, it's simply not true: I'm pretty sure there was a lot of hard work into fine-tuning the idea and finding people to invest in it.

It takes... Brass balls

Nice one Zodiax , now we get the person called Sales Noob or something bragging about how easy it will be because he has done it all

The concept isn't difficult to figure out.

Create a marketplace that allows service providers to make money which in turn makes money for the business. Same thing as:

• fiverr
• ebay
• themeforest
• etsy
• etc...

It takes a uber start

money, and lots of it

Here's one story:
(Source and infographic)

have you figured out how much they invest to start? can you guess how much airbnb invested to start
you can search by google and you will be surprised by that.

Curious to know why you post hundreds of these questions and never participate in the resulting discussion?

Yep. That easy. Just like all it takes to hit a major league home run is to pick up a bat.

Uber's story is out there. They and Airbnb have been the business media's darling stories for the last couple of years. A lot of stuff to read, interviews to listen to, etc that'll fill in most of the details for you.

This is a good listen:

Chris Sacca on Being Different and Making Billions | The Blog of Author Tim Ferriss

So is this:

Evan Williams: Building World-Changing Startups - FORA.tv

Oh and cuz you wanted something specifically on Uber, here's this:

https://youtu.be/Zt8L8WSSr1g

There's more. I can't find it all for ya.

Also, keep in mind that SEVERAL PEOPLE can get the SAME IDEA at roughly the SAME time.

The bottom line? EXECUTION

How can you share an idea with potential investors without having them just steal it? Also where would you look for investors?

1. a vision. 2. ambition. that's it.

You can go to Fiverr and outsource a Sales letter for $5 and pay another $5 for someone who will bring your idea to Market. And then another $5 to have a middleman who can connect you to the interested VC.

Total of $15 so it's a pretty simple process to make billions , really

I always find it telling that not one single person mentions that being able to EXECUTE on the idea is critical. Ok, some do... but most advice givers focus on the dreaming up and collecting of the cash.

Lots of dreamers. Lots of big ideas. Lots of investors willing to fund. But VERY FEW people who can actually build the damn things, be they software wonders, or dog beds (in quantity).

And nobody talking about being able to MANAGE the growing enterprise in a professional way. More people that can do that than build the products, but even there truly talented big thinking business executives are few and far between.

Many of the biggest companies started out with the most horrible products. Facebook for example. God it still sucks, but when it was starting it was just stinking up everywhere with the awfulness of poor execution.

But they at least kept it duct taped together long enough for the money to come in. So they passed the first test that probably 95% of startups fail. They actually got a product to market and kept it held together through sheer force of will until some money came in.

Then, when the money came in, they managed to apply it effectively to leverage the business, to hire / fix (kinda) the product, and to scale it out. I think Facebook succeeded at the scaling out the infrastructure, but still hasn't figured out how to design pleasant use cases. Ugh!

Regardless, they passed step two, which probably another 80% fail.

20% of 5% is 1%. They made it, most don't. And the actual idea is somewhat secondary to those first two grueling tests. You can make it past those two stages with Facebook, Uber or Google... and you can also make it with "Grandmas Pickle Dressings" or "Pookiepoo Doggie Dresses". It's more about execution and management (and force of will) than about the most brilliant novel product.

The next test isn't really a test at all, unless you can't be happy being a mere 1 percenter and nothing less than Billions will do....

At that point, you have to "be able" (means, motive, and moxy) to go big. Big marketing, big exposure, big investors, big big big big big.

But you don't actually have to go big to still be very successful. And trying to go big could very will turn what was a very good 1% thing, into a burnt up bankrupt failed attempt at being a 1 in a million thing.

But to go big you have to have the rock star big time team, and you have to have some big product that can hit a wide market. If your first product isn't the one (*cough*msbasic*cough*) build another one and keep going (windows 2.1 -> 3.0, Word, Excel, etc).

But I get the feeling that none of this was in your "vision" of how to succeed.

To "start" a major company, takes major grooming and major capital. Lehman blew up and you're out of a job restructuring big companies? Take your $5m severance, and use your rolodex and deal structuring knowledge to put together a "startup" with $20m, get some ish done, and do a second round of VC for another $100m. Ironically, at that point actually making money is probably not a good idea, as the next round of funding will 1) wonder why you need them and 2) be able to estimate your value. But if you don't have 15 years at Lehman, and you don't have the $5m, and you don't have any friends who do and are willing to bet it all going into business with you... chances are you better start a "minor" company.