We all have some bright ideas brewing up in our mind at all times. It may be as simple as how to do a small project for your child to a business breakthrough finding. Many people have such beautiful big ideas which can be capitalized, but only a few of them come out into realizing the business potential of their idea. There are some who are overconfident about their idea and feel it is perfect. A successful business comes up only after proper planning. It has to be analyzed and studied to know if your idea is the 'Next big thing.'
1. Put it Down on Paper
When you have an idea, and you know that it can be a business plan, then make sure to put it down in your diary. Sometimes, some key points can be missed when you try to recall it later. You can also add your elements of uncertainty and add points for further planning.
2. Create a prototype
People make the mistake of jumping in with the idea without proper planning. It is mostly due to excitement but will eventually turn out to be a bad move. Take some time to set in with the plan. Sometimes, one might have several ideas, to begin with when looking for a business plan. So waiting for some time and analyzing it will help to come up with a good choice. Market research can contribute to knowing if the idea can prove useful for the people and how well they will accept it. The best way to know this is to create a sample plan and discuss the same with friends to get some honest feedback on the prospective success of the scheme.
3. Take a Lean Startup
The MVP is a way to get the plan started on a tiny momentum. When you have a basic plan, you can create the smallest version of the product and conduct a study based on how well the customers are accepting it. This minimum viable product can be as low as possible. With a well-structured MVP, you can know how well your idea will be accepted in the market before making a major investment.
4. Expose it to the critics section
Your best critics are your customer. When you have created a smaller version of your idea, the next step is to take it to the potential clients. When you have a plan, you will also have an idea of your target customers. You can begin by reaching out to 50 potential clients and check if they relate the problem as you have seen it and how they see your product as a solution. The number of people who find the solution useful to the question can help you in evaluating how many people will be facing the problem and look up to your solution.
The choice of this critics group of 50 people or even more, has to be selected rather tactfully. You do not need a casual report. A keen and strict judgemental statement is the one that will help you move forward. You can choose those friends who are pessimists, keen on products and also people whom you feel are furious over a previous experience that relates to the problem.
5. Bring about necessary changes
When you are working with a smaller version of the bigger plan, you get the advantage of being able to make significant changes. Your initial business plan will be a good one, and by interacting with the potential customers, you will be able to know what kind of tweaking is required to make it fit the market needs.
6. Build your internet presence
Once you have done all the twists needed, the next step is to get the product, and its idea to reach the people. When your actual product is in the manufacturing process, you can work on providing the prospective customers with further information regarding the product through simple means like building a website and social media promotion. The number of views and interactions will help you gauge the level of interest that people are ought to have in the solution.
7. Sign-up Form
To measure audience interest in your product, you can add a form to your internet page. It can get you a mailing list of potential customers even before you make a proper product launch. You can also know how many people are looking up to the release of the product. Questions like “ Why you need the product X?” or “ How do you plan to use Product X?” can be added to the form to get further customized reports.
8. Release a miniature version on your website
The miniature version of the product, especially web products can help create some real popularity. You can even check if people would like to pay for a wider option of the service or product. It will give you the boost-up that is required to spend time and money on a product that people are likely going to buy.
9. Study the Losers and the Winners
There is a niche market that you are concentrating, and you can do a survey of the success stories and the failures. This will let you know where people went wrong in their product and planning. You can learn some lessons before the big launch.
10. Marketing the product
After all this preparatory work, people leave out the major part of marketing. Your product will become a success only if you can spread the word regarding it. A product or idea in the box will never reach the customers. There are several modes of marketing from traditional to most advanced methods. You can make a plan of over 100 ways to market the product and stick to those which you feel can fall into the marketing budget. Make sure that you execute the maximum possible marketing plans. Preplanned marketing strategies will present you with the perfect marketing models for your business so that you can utilize the ones that give you the maximum response.
There is always a fear to get started with a dream or an idea. There is nothing that should stop you from realizing your dreams. The trick is to create an MVP, get proper feedback, test it in the market, make changes if required to perfect the project and finally wait for it to make the headlines.
