August 19, 2015

How to generate business idea

Well, Most of the useful notes are extracted from Quora as my personal reference.

Today I noted about the idea generation for the start-ups since I am just need some guidances.

Idea Generation

Pick an idea that is trending / Look for a large market that hasn't change in 10 years / convert your hobby into business... those are not particularly helpful.
Try the spontaneous idea , not the sit-com idea. Those dots suddenly pop out of your mind could be surprisingly great.
The insider idea. You know something that others don't know, see an opportunity to do it on your own in your industry which you already working on it like 3 - 5 years already.
The deliberate idea.
Turn common complaints into a business plan.
Ideas are cheap.
Be understand that even the most successful companies were not founded on wild or brilliant ideas.
Starbucks chose the brazen path of selling coffee in Seattle. Facebook built a better MySpace. Google built a better Yahoo search. Microsoft copied Apple - who copied Xerox.
Original ideas are overrated.
What isn't overrated is timing. The key point is the underrepresented in the current market.
Try refine an existing idea that isn't fully realised than create a wholly original one.
People fear setting up a business wherever there's competition, but competition can be a good thing. The best place to setup a new restaurant is right next to another successful restaurant.
Deliver something that you and your friends would buy in a heartbeat.
You fake it until you make it. Just make and sell things. Don't waste time writing mission statements and policy documents.
Don't be surprised if you change your company entirely. It's a rare business that survives first contact with its customers.
Great execution of a terrible idea never works.
Convert yourself into an idea machine.
If your startup is successful, it will take at least five years to commit your idea as your mission statement.
Build something that a small number of users love instead of something that a lot of users like.
A great product will not need much marketing or growth hacking. It will spread by word of mouth.

Idea Execution

Setup a 30 - 40 hours task list over a week or two before you start.
Build the first 100 customer and the business list that gets closes to your idea, think about the potential business models.
Evaluate the opportunities where these lists overlap.
Evaluate the top ideas with real potential users, customers and the business partners.
Sketch -> Wireframing -> Protoyping -> Aglie Development -> Lean Startup , Build the MVP and test the product.
At the exact moment you had your idea, ten other people had the exact same idea. There race has already begun. Who's going to execute first? who's going to execute best? If you want to waste the nine months trying to raise VC money for that idea, great. But six months in, you're gonna cry when you see someone else put out that same product you're pitching me right now. Like I said, forget everything else and just get your product out the door. Now.
Find a great founding team with similar goals and passions. One person is almost never enough. You just can't do it all .
YOU MUST HAVE SOMEONE WITHIN YOUR TEAM THAT CAN BUILD THE THINGS OUT.
No office. No Phone system. No hiring. No press. No legal muck. No raising money. No looking for partnerships. The success or failure of the adoption of your products is what will create 99% of the initial value of your company.
If no one ever uses your product, you have no value.
Go live as quick as you can. Bound quick. Keep it simple.
The initial product you build is for you - you don't know what features everyone else wants.
Launch fast and light, listen to customer feedback than bound.
Once you jumped to one from zero, you have to : get one - two good mentors, VCs, partners and all the legal expenses.
The best founding team for a start-up is a group of two or three people who have synergistic skills.
First, try to make yourself redundant. If you dropped dead tomorrow, your business should carry on working just fine.
The final step is a bit like playing Who Wants to Be a Millionaire. Each question you get right doubles your money, or you're going home.
As a company grows the rules and your culture change completely. Remember no business can grow indefinitely. Most industries are more efficient at different sizes - it's easy to be a two-man plumbing company, but near impossible to build a 1,000 man plumbing corporation.
Know the limits.
Four factors : idea + Product + Team + Execution.
Mediocre people do not build great companies.
Keep account of the growth and momentum of your startup. Look in to metric every day.
Move fast, break rules.
Execution quality and ship new features everyday.
The order matters.

References