New Business Idea Generation Process

Assignment:

·  Identify a new business idea.

·  Capture its essence in a paragraph or two.

Sources for new business ideas:

  1. Yourself
  2. Conduct a self analysis to identify what you are sufficiently passionate about that you’d enjoy spending 60+ hours a week for the next 3-5 years working in this space.
  3. List the primary competitors who are already offering a product or service with which your idea would be in competition.
  4. Analyze their offering to determine how your product/service could be different. Note: just being different won’t work: difference must be sufficiently important to customer so that they’ll buy your product/service and not the competition.
  5. Leverage a Trend
  6. There are four major environmental trends
  7. Economic forces like disposable income, consumer spending patterns (dual income families, alternative power sources)
  8. Social forces like demographic or lifestyle changes (ageing of America, obesity)
  9. Technological advances like new technologies or new uses of existing technologies (internet, increasing cell phone functionality)
  10. Political/Regulatory changes like new laws and regulations (financial regulations, non-smoking in public places)
  11. Identify a trend which you think is:
  12. Not a fad/has marketplace longevity
  13. Has voids in existing products/services offered such that no one is doing what your new product/service would do or your product/service can do it better (ie: combines solutions from several existing products, your product is easier to use or to buy, your product/service is more appealing). Note that while an acceptable new product/service may provide better value, competing just on price is not a sustainable marketplace position.
  14. Solve a problem
  15. Observe consumers: what are the problems that they’re experiencing with the products/services they’re currently using to address that problem. Make sure the problem:
  16. Occurs frequently
  17. Its solution is important
  18. Identify a meaningful improvement in the problem’s solution (ie: combines multiple product benefits, a new better way to solve that problem, etc). Make sure your solution:
  19. Is not currently offered by a competitor
  20. Is practically and financially deliverable (at this point, just a high confidence in this area will suffice).

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