Do you really want to create a B2C?

It's okay, go ahead, but be prepared.

Last weekend I was at the kickoff of one of these university challenges in which teams formed by students develop an entrepreneurial project with the collaboration of mentors.

After a "reverse pitch" from the mentors - a fun experience, meeting on the other side of the stage - the different teams went to the mentors of their choice to explain their projects. Most of those who spoke to me presented ideas for B2C platforms, healthy food, sustainable brands, tourism, sports... Some of them very original. Many of them with the logical naivety of a 1st year student. B2C projects are usually much more attractive.

And I felt with an increasingly habitual deja-vu, like a spoilsport, explaining two things to them:

That, even if the product is wonderful, nobody will use it if they don't know about it. That the Internet is not what it used to be and that, in order for everyone to know about it, they have to invest huge amounts in recruitment, whatever their strategy. And often sell at low cost or even give your product away for free in the early stages.

And that, on the other hand, if the idea makes sense, it is relatively easy for a corporation to invest much more money and take over the market. Or, more commonly: if another startup with a similar idea is more adept at raising funds, it may find itself competing against a product that is perhaps worse, but "doped" with millions of euros for communication. 

Yes, if it goes well, there are so many millions of potential users that, even if they only give you 1 euro a month, you're already a winner. But most likely you will run out of funds before you get there. That your losses will exceed your turnover every year. And, if you are the "skilled" one who knows how to raise funds, you will keep closing bigger and bigger rounds that will lead you to double your turnover ...and losses.

So the first piece of advice when an entrepreneur comes to me with a B2C project is usually: are you sure? 

The answer is always yes, of course...

Then you have to explain that each customer is going to cost you dozens or hundreds of euros. Moreover, customers are lost and you have to keep attracting them. And that he should calculate whether in his best case scenario, when everything works out, he will recover that investment. Because, contrary to what it seems, the success of a company is not measured by the money collected, but by the money earned.

And if the answer is still yes, the only thing left to do is to ask him if he already knows where he will get those millions.

Of course there are success stories. Quite a few. And, from the outset, they all have my sincere admiration. 

But in almost all of them there is a differential value in the equipment or in their environment without which they would not have succeeded. Perhaps the niche or the real need they cover. 

So I don't mean to say that all B2C is doomed to failure. Far from it. But they are more difficult. So, after asking them if they are sure and before accepting them in the accelerator or investing in them, we need to find that differential value, whatever it is, that can lead them to success. And then, yes, give them all the support they need, because entrepreneurship is hard, but in B2C even harder.