A good business comes from a great business idea. Creating a great business idea is also a process that results from personal dreams. All successful companies you can see worldwide are a product of dreams turned to be business ideas. It is therefore your responsibility to make things happen. There are 5 steps necessary in developing your business idea namely; ideas generation, best idea determination, exploration, cleansing and finally testing the idea.
Consider starting small with a prototype or a pilot program to get feedback from potential customers. Thus, before you launch your business, test your idea with existing infrastructure.
Five (5) Key Steps for Developing a Business Idea
Ideas Generation
The first step in developing business ideas is generating some ideas from which a strong business idea is born. In this step, you should write down every idea that comes to your mind. Every time you think of an idea, do not allow it to perish, instead, jot it down. You can use a week or so to do this exercise.
You may be asking yourself about the source of such ideas. In most cases, the ideas come from your daily life, the surrounding environment, the people around you, and their activities. You can also generate ideas from the challenges that your society faces. Ensure to have a whole page or more ideas before you start thinking of the best one.
Best idea determination
You need to select what you consider the best idea from your list of ideas. You need to select the best idea from your list of ideas. A few considerations are necessary to determine the best choice out of your several ideas jotted down. However, remember not to throw away the other ideas after deciding on the best choice, as you may need to go back to the list.
- Your current skills: Doing business in the area you are skilled at, provides a high chance of doing well in your business compared to doing business that you are not skilled at.
- Your experience: We know that experience is always the best teacher. Thus in selecting the best out of your list, you may consider what you are experienced at. And if a from your experience is necessary, then, consider an area where you can easily and fast adapt.
- Your Passion: Operating a small business may mean submitting your whole self to the activity. If you submit yourself to something, you do not love doing means failing before you begin. Hence, it is advised that you select an idea from the area you are passionate about.
- Work-life balance: Your family has a contribution to making your business a success. Thus, when selecting your best choice, consider your family lifestyle to maintain the required balance.
- Community Challenge: One of the features of a successful business is its ability to solve community challenges. Thus, consider evaluating such a business’s power to solve community problems when selecting the best idea.
Exploring the idea
Remember that after you have determined what you consider the best idea, you will need to turn it into a business. Exploration of the concept aims at getting objective and critical feedback from potential users of your product or service. Hence, it would help if you undertake a bit of research to make sure that you understand all the business variables related to the selected idea. The variables may include what the existing market offers and what you consider adding to the market; in case you venture into it, who are the top competitors? You also need to go the extra mile to know the required resources needed to turn your idea into a business.
Cleansing the idea
From the feedback obtained while exploring the idea, you need to evaluate it and undertake some refinements before putting it into action. At this point, you may need to go back to the list of ideas generated in step one. From the list, you may need to go to a second choice. Do it this way until you reach the final decision.
Idea testing
As part of the process, you need to test your idea against the market, competition, and availability of customers. That is to say, you will have to undertake preliminary market research on the workability of the selected best idea.