Business Ideas and the Action to Make them Happen

[555555]

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

-Anatole France

I think a crucial aspect of being a successful business person is being capable of converting an idea into a business. Once you manage to come up with the idea, you are imediately confronted with an ample number of potential problems and negativity to overcome (not to mention the problems overlooked).

So I'm wondering what advice could be given to someone who is facing such problems. How do you know when an idea is a good one? A great one? How do you know what will, or what will not work? Obviously there are certain aspects such as competition, previous successes, and large consumer bases. But I think many of us uprising entrepreneurs are a bit stuck as to what constitutes a sound business idea.

What are the exact characteristics of a good business idea? Can an entrepreneur ever be certain of monetary success or is the situation more dynamic than that?

The point that I'm attempting to address here is what can be considered adequate evidence that an idea is good enough to dedicate time, money, and effort to. At what point do you stop pondering and teasing the idea, and begin working towards making it happen?

Maybe I'm just picky and too much of a perfectionist to make a decision. Nonetheless, I want to be confidant with my decisions and have calculated evidence to believe in what I'm working towards. I am ready for failure and I know that nothing comes easily, but I am not sure how exactly to be assured enough about an idea to go through with it.

To all of you who have proceeded me and have made the decision to execute an idea, I'd feel privileged to know what motivated and pushed you to take that vital step.

 

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[yveskleinsky]

Gaging the soundness of an idea and if you should move forward is a tricky place to be. I kinda think that almost any idea can become successful given enough time, money and energy. I think the bigger question is how much time, energy and money are you willing to put into it to make it a success. Since being here on this forum, I have learned that for me the three most important criteria to check for when considering developing an idea are: 1. Is there a demand for your product or service? 2. Is your product or service scalable? 3.Does it fit in with your plan for your life?

Let me explain a little bit. I don't want to build a product and then build the market. It takes too long and the odds of success are too low. So any ideas that have that fall into this category I toss out the window. Could they be million dollar ideas? Maybe. However, like most people here, I get ideas all day long and running them past a filtering process has actually made me more creative and has trained me to think bigger. 2. If the product or service isn't readily scalable, that means I'll be doing most of the work, and I don't want that. I don't mind doing work, I just want to get in, build a system and train someone else or automate as quickly as possible. 3. My plan for my life involves as much freedom to do what I want when I want. Freedom for me comes over money. I didn't have this clarity early on, hell, not even a year ago. Since I didn't have this clarity I bought some rental properties and then started a small property mgmt company. Now I have no freedom during peak season. I created a job for myself. I did this because I was chasing opportunity and selling myself short thinking that to gain financial freedom required this kind of sacrifice. --It doesn't have to.

At the end of the day you'll never know which ideas are million dollar ones and which aren't, only the future can tell that one. The best you can do is to map out your criteria for what you look for in an entrepreneurial venture and then get moving.

 

[555555]

Thanks for the input yveskleinsky. As far as criteria for a business I would definitely say that fast growth is a factor in that I don't want to spend in excess of 5 years before seeing any real movement with the business. Although if this happens to be the case, it will not be enough to stop me.

 

[fanocks2003]

To accomplish great things, we must not only act, but also dream; not only plan, but also believe.

-Anatole France
I think a crucial aspect of being a successful business person is being capable of converting an idea into a business. Once you manage to come up with the idea, you are imediately confronted with an ample number of potential problems and negativity to overcome (not to mention the problems overlooked).

So I'm wondering what advice could be given to someone who is facing such problems. How do you know when an idea is a good one? A great one? How do you know what will, or what will not work? Obviously there are certain aspects such as competition, previous successes, and large consumer bases. But I think many of us uprising entrepreneurs are a bit stuck as to what constitutes a sound business idea.

What are the exact characteristics of a good business idea? Can an entrepreneur ever be certain of monetary success or is the situation more dynamic than that?

The point that I'm attempting to address here is what can be considered adequate evidence that an idea is good enough to dedicate time, money, and effort to. At what point do you stop pondering and teasing the idea, and begin working towards making it happen?

Maybe I'm just picky and too much of a perfectionist to make a decision. Nonetheless, I want to be confidant with my decisions and have calculated evidence to believe in what I'm working towards. I am ready for failure and I know that nothing comes easily, but I am not sure how exactly to be assured enough about an idea to go through with it.

To all of you who have proceeded me and have made the decision to execute an idea, I'd feel privileged to know what motivated and pushed you to take that vital step.

You seldom know.

 

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[Runum]

Gaging the soundness of an idea and if you should move forward is a tricky place to be. I kinda think that almost any idea can become successful given enough time, money and energy. I think the bigger question is how much time, energy and money are you willing to put into it to make it a success. Since being here on this forum, I have learned that for me the three most important criteria to check for when considering developing an idea are: 1. Is there a demand for your product or service? 2. Is your product or service scalable? 3.Does it fit in with your plan for your life?

Let me explain a little bit. I don't want to build a product and then build the market. It takes too long and the odds of success are too low. So any ideas that have that fall into this category I toss out the window. Could they be million dollar ideas? Maybe. However, like most people here, I get ideas all day long and running them past a filtering process has actually made me more creative and has trained me to think bigger. 2. If the product or service isn't readily scalable, that means I'll be doing most of the work, and I don't want that. I don't mind doing work, I just want to get in, build a system and train someone else or automate as quickly as possible. 3. My plan for my life involves as much freedom to do what I want when I want. Freedom for me comes over money. I didn't have this clarity early on, hell, not even a year ago. Since I didn't have this clarity I bought some rental properties and then started a small property mgmt company. Now I have no freedom during peak season. I created a job for myself. I did this because I was chasing opportunity and selling myself short thinking that to gain financial freedom required this kind of sacrifice. --It doesn't have to.

At the end of the day you'll never know which ideas are million dollar ones and which aren't, only the future can tell that one. The best you can do is to map out your criteria for what you look for in an entrepreneurial venture and then get moving.

Dana, this is great stuff. +++speed

 

[MonTexan]

My advice is to just get started - it looks like you're already taking action by putting the question out there, but you can definitely get sucked into "paralysis by analysis" if you try and plan out every little detail before taking action. In my case w/ REI, I simply started small - found a partner to share 50% of the risk with and bought a duplex that wouldn't break me if it sat empty. Believe me, I read a lot of books and ran the numbers carefully trying to analyze the worst case scenario, but at the end of the day you learn the most from DOING. You'll also gain much more credibility when talking to realtors, bankers, mortgage brokers (or whoever your players are) when you've got an actual deal in place. I've found that they'll tell you "yes" all day long when talking hypothetically about an idea, but their tune often changes when you say "ok, here's my idea let's make it happen." Just my two cents...

 

[maximus20895]

Action is key if you want really want your dreams to come true. It amazes me how many people tell me they want something, but never take any action. It is like they are dwelling on their own self pitty or something. People dream all the time, but taking action is a whole different story.

 

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