I’ve mentioned before that a lot of people want business steps laid out to take them from the idea stage to the marketplace. If you’re one of those that would like a plan consisting of business steps, try this on for size.
The very first of your business steps should be to test your fundamental business idea. Don’t move on mere speculation or assumption. Why? Just look at the meaning of these words:
Assumption – something taken for granted
Speculation – conjectural consideration of a matter; conjecture or surmise: a report based on speculation rather than facts.
No idea is considered valid until you’ve tested your hypothesis. You need a solid foundation to build upon.
Consider: Is it a business idea that’s already being done effectively? Does it improve on a currently marketed product or service? Where is the market? Who’s buying and why? Is it a forward thinking venture or is it out-dated and overdone? Will customers respond to your changes and improvements? Do they want them? Will they even care?
Once you’ve arrived at the viability of your idea, you can move forward with the next in your series of business steps. Start small. Here’s where you move your ideas to stage one products or services. As you bring them to market watch how your customers react. They will give you important feedback and data to base your next business steps on. You’ll get qualitative and quantitative feedback (what they like and what they don’t like).
Think of your first products or services as experiments, nothing more. Success or failure isn’t the real issue here. It’s refining and adapting to market demands. This is a learning process.
Always get through your business steps as quickly and efficiently as possible. Don’t spend a lot of time fine-tuning and seeking perfection. You are likely to “guess” wrong about what your market truly wants. If it takes a long time coming to that verdict, you’ve wasted valuable time and money.
Eliminate waste! Don’t build castles in the sky.
- Test the viability of your idea
- Move forward on a small scale
- Adapt to feedback and move forward
If you follow those three business steps in the very beginning, your chances of success greatly increase.
How do you test the viability of your product or service? How can you scale back your idea temporarily so you can get your stage one product or service to market quickly and efficiently?
