Imagup General Magazine 2024
There is no end to the emergence of ideas in people’s minds. The average person is struck by an idea literally every day. An idea is immaterial and at best thought of intent. Businesses start off as business ideas which then are executed or given expression.
In this article, we shall be discussing coming up with a good business idea. Ideas often times dawn on people in their raw form and thus require refinement before ultimate rollout. It is what you have to do from your eureka moment onwards that we want to deal with herein.
There Is Nothing New Under The Sun
Never fool yourself by thinking you have come up with the most novel idea. On a micro-level, it is possible to somehow say you can come up with a novel business idea. What we mean is that it is possible to come up with a novel business idea in a locality. Otherwise on a global scale whatever you think is a novel idea is always something that has been tried before.
Why is it important to consider this? It goes a long way in getting rid of biases and assumptions. When something thinks their business idea is novel they are highly susceptible to assuming it will hit big without any significant effort. Making such an assumption compromises creative thinking and sets one up for possible disappointments. The measure of the subsequent success of a business is not in its being novel – never think that it will not work because it is not necessarily new.
The Essence Of Entrepreneurship
When a business idea strikes you bear in mind what entrepreneurship is about. The essence of entrepreneurship is identifying a human need and addressing it in a way that can be monetized. You then have to judge or evaluate your business idea against that standard. Some people might think this is cliché but it is simple yet profound truth. Most people start a business based on a business idea borne out of the wrong inspirations.
Inspirations like jealousy, copying, or just blindly following trends. If your business idea is not established on the premise of wanting to address human needs the journey might turn out hard for you. When someone is primed to do something because they want to help people they always figure out how to deal with any hurdle along the way.
Empirical Research
Earlier we spoke of assumptions and biases – so many operate with these. Just because someone has set up a particular business does not mean you can do the same and achieve the same results. You need to carry out research and write a business plan which validates your business idea. Click here for examples of business plans. In building and refining your business idea you must diligently conduct some research to establish insights for your context. This research will entail so much to look at. Things like already existing businesses with similar or near similar businesses – possibly your competitors once you set up the business.
Look at possible target markets, the demographics, and consumer behaviors; use that information to come up with a business plan. A business idea always falls under a particular industry – take time to study about that industry. You might even realize that your initial business idea can morph into something else as you do this exercise. So carrying out business research and coming up with a business plan is important.
Rigorous Testing
Testing can be done on any level or stage of the journey. It must start from when you have turned the business idea into something we can term a minimum viable product. This is a low-cost micro version of your business idea that can be used to conduct practical tests. You probably might have seen how that, say an app developer gives early access to just a few people. This is will be for those people to interact with the minimum viable product so as to comment on their user experience.
If this process is done well it should inform the originator of a business idea on whether or not to proceed or not. It saves possible losses and even embarrassment. That is just one way; you can do surveys through interviews, questionnaires, polls and so on. You can tailor these surveys in a way that does not fully disclose your business idea but giving you valuable insights. The crux of all this is to test the efficacy of your business idea.
‘Protecting An Idea’
This is a lengthy subject but I will just point out some things. Not all business ideas necessarily need special protection. There are some that do need that though. Examples can be inventions, special formulas, just to mention a few. Remember you cannot really protect an idea but the expression of the idea. The success of some businesses will be heavily dependent on you having exclusive rights such intellectual property (IP) rights. Especially if you are going to be seeking funding or seeking strategic partnerships you must ‘protect your idea’. It is vital to approach lawyers (especially IP lawyers), they can guide you accordingly.
Tweak Cost Versus Pricing
A good business idea must be transformed into an actionable business model that is profitable. This means it must have a cost structure that will enable the subsequent pricing of your products to be affordable yet profitable. This is something that can be looked into at the very onset of your conception of the business idea. You can almost say all business ideas are good but most crumble because of this element. Most business ideas entail production costs that are so high that the prices have to be so high to achieve profitability. Coming up with a good business idea involves finding ways of streamlining the cost structure so that the ultimate prices are both affordable for the customer and profitable for the business owner.
A good business idea must be versatile and scalable. This means it should be possible to easily pivot as and when needs be. A business idea anchored on one sole service or product that is rigid can be a time bomb. Refine your idea in such a way that it can be timeless. You should have learned a lot from this business ideas article.
