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How great is your business idea from a CENTS perspective? Find out instantly...

MJ DeMarco

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Introducing -- Grade My Business Idea -- a website tool that will instantly grade and rate your business ideas in accordance to a weighted CENTS Framework whereas NEED and SCALE is most important, plus a MARKET ACCESS variable. (If you can't reach a market with a message, do you have a market??)

Grade My Business Idea: Business Ideas and Opportunities Rated Fast

I thought it was about time I created a grading tool with properly weighted metrics to determine the value of potential business ideas. Now anytime someone at the forum comes forward with an idea, I (we) can easily use this tool for dynamic grading. The tool specifies strengths, weaknesses, and puts the idea in perspective of the execution multiplier scale which I detailed at the end of The Millionaire Fastlane .

Just a few examples recently in the last few weeks here...

THE UPSCALE INVENTION

THE BROCHURE HOLDER INVENTION

DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY / SEO SERVICES
(Common "foot in the pool" business around here)

THE DIALYSIS TRANSPORT IDEA

So moving forward, ANYONE can have their ideas rated and graded according to my CENTS Framework, and they don't need to ask me personally! It's all there for you to review, assuming you're honest with your answers.

The tool has only been up for a few days and still have a few tweaks left, but for the most part, it should work.

Enjoy!
 
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SD Entrepreneur

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Introducing -- Grade My Business Idea -- a website tool that will instantly grade and rate your business ideas in accordance to a weighted CENTS Framework whereas NEED and SCALE is most important, plus a MARKET ACCESS variable. (If you can't reach a market with a message, do you have a market??)

Grade My Business Idea: Business Ideas and Opportunities Rated Fast

I thought it was about time I created a grading tool with properly weighted metrics to determine the value of potential business ideas. Now anytime someone at the forum comes forward with an idea, I (we) can easily use this tool for dynamic grading. The tool specifies strengths, weaknesses, and puts the idea in perspective of the execution multiplier scale which I detailed at the end of The Millionaire Fastlane .

Just a few examples recently in the last few weeks here...

THE UPSCALE INVENTION

THE BROCHURE HOLDER INVENTION

DIGITAL MARKETING AGENCY / SEO SERVICES (Common "foot in the pool" business around here)

THE DIALYSIS TRANSPORT IDEA

So moving forward, ANYONE can have their ideas rated and graded according to my CENTS Framework, and they don't need to ask me personally! It's all there for you to review, assuming you're honest with your answers.

The tool has only been up for a few days and still have a few tweaks left, but for the most part, it should work.

Enjoy!
Nice, I'm sure it's a little easier than that grading spreadsheet I made, will have to play around with it!
 
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MJ DeMarco

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Nice, I'm sure it's a little easier than that grading spreadsheet I made, will have to play around with it!

Your spreadsheet is what gave me the idea to put something together that could be easily used and accessible ... something that will last through the ages, lol.
 
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BD64

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Awesome
 

SD Entrepreneur

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Your spreadsheet is what gave me the idea to put something together that could be easily used and accessible ... something that will last through the ages, lol.
Awesome, glad I helped inspire it! I might have to do an execution thread someday soon that starts with entering ideas on that site, narrowing down an idea and turning it into a viable revenue stream... :moneybag:
 
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CaptainAmerica

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I like it - fast answers! The advantage of having my own formula, though, is that I can play with the weightiness of different factors for different ideas. But yours is a gateway - if I get a C or better, it's worth pulling out my spreadsheet. (first one got a C+)
 

broswoodwork

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This will probably go viral on other parts of the interwebs, if it hasn't started to already. Probably a pain in the a$$, but what if the cents categories an idea scores poorly in come with a pre packaged fix-it diagnosis (recommended appropriate gold threads here)?
 

Tiger TT

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The tool evaluated my current business almost exactly right.

The recommendations in the weaknesses section told me what to do in order to reach the full potential.

Great tool. Thanks MJ.
 

njord

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Wow this is awesome!
This is really eye opening its one thing to read your conceps in a book or on this forum but now going through all my Ideas and filling them in gives me such a beter understanding of what ideas are crap and which ones have potential!
 

MJ DeMarco

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The tool evaluated my current business almost exactly right.

This is really eye opening its one thing to read your conceps in a book or on this forum but now going through all my Ideas and filling them in gives me such a beter understanding of what ideas are crap and which ones have potential!


Thanks, I tested many ideas on it and they all were pretty accurate. Of course, accuracy depends on the input variables. It even will detect and then reject garbage variables (I have a strong need 10 and 0 entry!).
 
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I don't understand how to interpret the 1-10 scales for a number of the items ... what does a 10 mean on Entry, for example? I see the expandable description, which is helpful, but here's whats confusing me:

If I think about normal startup businesses, my new business is pretty difficult to start, so somewhere between 8 and 10. If I compare it to SpaceX, my little idea is about a 2. Someone with $1,000,000 and a bit of knowledge could hire some people and do this same thing.

When I compare my idea to hugely difficult to start companies, I get a B or B+. If I ignore them, its an A+, which doesn't quite seem reasonable.
 

MJ DeMarco

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I don't understand how to interpret the 1-10 scales for a number of the items

If I think about normal startup businesses, my new business is pretty difficult to start, so somewhere between 8 and 10. If I compare it to SpaceX, my little idea is about a 2. Someone with $1,000,000 and a bit of knowledge could hire some people and do this same thing.

You're overthinking it.

How difficult is it to start for the AVERAGE PERSON? This is a small business tool for an entrepreneur who wishes to start a small to mid-sized business, it's not a tool for Elon Musk to determine his next business venture.

With that said, I don't know your business. But if you gave your business idea to say, your best friend, or gave it to any random guy walking down the street, how difficult would it be for him to start? Will he need a degree in computer science and $100K? Or does he just need to contact some dude on Alibaba and wham, he's in business?
 
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You're overthinking it.

How difficult is it to start for the AVERAGE PERSON? This is a small business tool for an entrepreneur who wishes to start a small to mid-sized business, it's not a tool for Elon Musk to determine his next business venture.

With that said, I don't know your business. But if you gave your business idea to say, your best friend, or gave it to any random guy walking down the street, how difficult would it be for him to start? Will he need a degree in computer science and $100K? Or does he just need to contact some dude on Alibaba and wham, he's in business?
Ahh. This makes a lot of sense. Thanks.

My idea is a Personal Trainer in an app. An actual real live human personal trainer that will analyze every workout performed by the client, offer feedback, encouragement... Live chats scheduled regularly with the client. Etc. Workouts will be recorded by the client via voice memo within the app, transcribed by our staff. All for $45/month selling price.

To me, if you're going to give this to an average person on the street, they're going to struggle. There's the app and the back end software to write, trainers and transcribers to hire, workout programs to develop, marketing to be done, etc. And it has to fit into that price at a margin that makes sense.

Maybe for people like me that like to overthink things, you could mention on your very excellent rating tool that the metric to use is 'for the average person on the street, how difficult is this, scale of 0-10'
 

MJ DeMarco

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There's the app and the back end software to write, trainers and transcribers to hire, workout programs to develop, marketing to be done, etc. And it has to fit into that price at a margin that makes sense.

Yes, I'd consider that a 7-9.
 
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I think it needs some metric for how much a sale or the lifetime value of a customer is

Single digit? 4 digits? Etc

Otherwise some of the other metrics are skewed (like with my SaaS business where upkeep is minimal , reproduction is free and it cost at least 100k but the score got brought down signifigantly because theyd have multi year contracts)
 

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What does the sentence in the parentheses mean? Dmn, this made me uncomfortable to read....Seemed like a great market to be in. This seriously made me doubt my decision now.. But nevertheless, what a good thing still!
 
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This is awesome, great work! Tested a few ideas and it seems very accurate as well.
 

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Pretty spot on with my own analysis of my business.

Time separation is my biggest problem, but I also play in a very traditional market where I’m going to need to build a large company that will require hands on leadership and work.

Awesome tool @MJ DeMarco !
 
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Scot

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What does the sentence in the parentheses mean? Dmn, this made me uncomfortable to read....Seemed like a great market to be in. This seriously made me doubt my decision now.. But nevertheless, what a good thing still!

10 years ago everyone was a “paid blogger”.

5 years ago everyone was “developing an SaaS company”

Now, everyone who has a rudimentary understanding of Facebook and AdWords is “starting a digital marketing agency”

The market is so over saturated it’s not even funny. Do you know how many crappy boiler plate emails I get offering to do a digital advertising audit on my business go into trash (or never get seen in my spam folder)? Hundreds.

It’s impossible you be unique in this space.

If this is something you’re considering, you either better have a great case study where you got some client 10x ROAS or look at just applying your digital marketing experience to selling your own brand.
 

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10 years ago everyone was a “paid blogger”.

5 years ago everyone was “developing an SaaS company”

Now, everyone who has a rudimentary understanding of Facebook and AdWords is “starting a digital marketing agency”

The market is so over saturated it’s not even funny. Do you know how many crappy boiler plate emails I get offering to do a digital advertising audit on my business go into trash (or never get seen in my spam folder)? Hundreds.

It’s impossible you be unique in this space.

If this is something you’re considering, you either better have a great case study where you got some client 10x ROAS or look at just applying your digital marketing experience to selling your own brand.
Cant argue over spam mails...got into amazon and the flood came.
Oh damn, I actualy am considering it very deeply. So it is basically a long-shot?
Thanks for the reply
 
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Scot

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Cant argue over spam mails...got into amazon and the flood came.
Oh damn, I actualy am considering it very deeply. So it is basically a long-shot?
Thanks for the reply

I have 6 competitors in my entire market in the US, only 1 I take seriously.

You probably have 5,000+ competitors.

Which market is easier to stand out in?
 
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alekssiht

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I have 6 competitors in my entire market in the US, only 1 I take seriously.

You probably have 5,000+ competitors.

Which market is easier to stand out in?
6 in the US? What on earth are you doing.
Well, in my country there are about 80 digital marketing agencies.
 

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