“This is totally a company you would create!”

That’s what people would say every time I showed them the prototype for Clarity.

My passion for connecting people to have a conversation was something I had been doing for years…

… first starting with Founder Dinners, and morphing over the years to my entrepreneurial events like Maple Summit, Idea to Exit, etc.

What I quickly realized is that most great companies were started by founders who had a passion for the problem way before they discovered the solution.

For example, some people say that Travis Kalanick (CEO of Uber) was an optimizer his whole life.

For me, it was helping people get unstuck (the original Clarity slogan).

In many ways these videos are a bi-product of that focus.

This week I want to share the 5 keys to startup success – Product/Founder Fit being #1 – to help you understand what makes a great idea.

Now, you don’t need all 5 to be successful, but two or three is a great place to start.

The most challenging is #5 – building a moat (i.e. being hard to copy).

I can’t tell you how many times I got a Google News alert for someone posting a job on UpWork.com for someone to clone Clarity or Flowtown (my previous company).

Not exactly the best feeling in the world.

One of the keys to a great startup idea is defensibility.

So what’s got you excited about what you’re building?

How is it connected to one of the 5 keys to building a successful startup?

Leave a comment with your answer and share your excitement with the community!

This is especially important for you if you’ve never left a comment.

Today is your day … go from being a digital introvert to one who’s publicly proud of what they're building.

See you in the comments.

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Dan Martell has advised more startups than his hometown has people and teaches startup founders like you how to scale. (Get the free 3 videos to grow your business here.) He previously created, raised venture funding for and successfully exited two tech startups: Flowtown and Clarity.fm. You should follow him on twitter@danmartell for tweets that are actually awesome.

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