As an entrepreneur, it’s very likely you have many good business ideas but don’t have the focus or even the time to make them all work.
Sometimes it becomes clear, midway through setting up a business based on an idea, that the current idea may not work as well as a business compared to another idea you trashed earlier on.
I personally have an ‘ideas book’ with over 70 business ideas; some seem good, some I know are lousy. However, what do you do to prioritise your list so you don’t waste time on the lousy or mediocre ideas, or those ideas whose time may not yet have come?
The first thing I do is make up a set of criteria to benchmark the idea against. The criteria could include:
- Do I have the resources required or do I need to buy it in;
- Is this a now, or future, business;
- What’s a reasonable time-frame to get from ‘idea’ to ‘business’ and is it possible to find that time;
- What are the perceived costs involved in getting the business to launch phase;
- Is this a lone-wolf business or will I require partners;
- Social and economic factors that may affect the success of my business model now and in 3 years time;
- and one of the most important: does this business sound exciting enough to dedicate time and effort in the long run?
Once you have your set of criteria, look at your ideas one by one and make some rough notes for each based on the criteria so you can easily give each one a priority, say 1 to10. Shortlist those with the highest priority and further develop the notes for each of these to see which one comes out looking like a winner.
Now it’s possible to put the other ideas on the shelf and concentrate on the chosen one and develop it further using the usual business development tools like market research, business plans etc.
None of this is rocket science but it’s unbelievable how many ideas are developed into businesses, and usually headed for failure, without any thought to any of the criteria I mention above. I know this from personal experience.
Posted in Generating Revenue
Recent Comments