Expert Financial & Business Insights for South Africa
Strategic analysis from Idea Accelerator and ready-to-publish content from Financial News Daily.
If you are reading this page it’s highly likely you need help with turning your idea into a viable business and you think Ideaaccelerator might be the one to help you.
And… maybe, maybe not.
It all depends – on me and you, the kind of idea you have, and how much you’re willing to invest in taking your idea from mere thought or wishful thinking to a product or service that may eventually be a source of income to you. Continue reading “Is it possible to turn your idea into a viable business?”
Let’s get this out of the way upfront …
I could entertain you with personal stories and anecdotes from start-ups who did not protect their personal assets from their business assets but this would simply detract from what you really need to do… because there are no DIY shortcuts:
Get the best lawyer you can afford.
Continue reading “You must do this to protect your small business and personal assets”
What does an entrepreneur need to know about marketing to win with their new product or service?
Let’s first see what marketing is and what it isn’t for the start-up business.
Marketing is about offering a potential customer a product or service that meets or fulfills a need, want or desire that they already possess. Don’t let statements like marketing “develops a demand for your product or service” mislead you. Demand must already exist in your potential customer, even an unmet need. For a small business to try create demand is simply foolishness. Yes, you can offer potential customers a product and service that satisfies the need that they already have but you really can’t create the need, want or desire in them. You need to channel their demand towards your product or service. Continue reading “What a start-up really needs to know about marketing”
I sat in the living room writing this in the fading light unable to turn on the lights. The electricity crashed in a heavy Highveld thunderstorm. Traffic lights were out too.
What do you do in these sudden and unexpected circumstances? Continue reading “When it pays to have a Plan B”
The simple four-step system that transforms your new product or service idea into an income generator
Click the beginning of the pencast (on the image) above to listen and view.
Coming up with new ideas for products and services can be the biggest challenge for some start-ups and small business owners. Others find the idea-generation process exciting and fall in love with their ideas.
Identifying which business ideas have real commercial potential is one of the most difficult challenges that would be entrepreneurs and even experienced small business owners face.
Some entrepreneurs, product developers and creative people love creating products. But they can easily fall into the trap of not performing essential commercial tasks such as marketing and selling without which they won’t have customers. Continue reading “How can you develop a roadmap to turn your idea into a product or service that customers will buy?”
The food came late. The meal tasted awful. The unsmiling waiter kept us waiting for the bill. The restaurant manager wasn’t there to listen to our complaints.
This isn’t about customer gripes. We all have our own tales of service woe:
• Deliveries that come a week late.
• Waiting on the call centre line for up to half an hour to speak to accounts for your utility bill and getting cut off and having to call again… and again. Continue reading “Are your customers satisfied with your service?”
New business ideas, once developed and implemented, can lead to increased sales and profit.
But here’s the thing:
New business ideas take small business owners into the realm of uncertainty.
Will they attract prospective customers? Will customers buy? What if the new business idea bombs and you lose all the money that you’ve invested into its development and introduction onto the market? Continue reading “How to reduce risk in new ideas”
Ideas can bring about new products and services, lead to forming a business and solve our pressing problems and challenges.
But where do you find ideas?
How do you come up with ideas, especially if you’re in a hurry and need them like now?
Really, there are mainly three ways:
• You can wait until an idea comes but you could wait until it’s too late.
• You can observe what is going on around you and hope that an idea will suddenly come from nowhere.
• You can approach idea-generation in a structured way using proven techniques that will increase your chances of coming up with a great idea.
Off-the-shelf business opportunities (biz-ops) are springing up like Kalahari Desert truffles after the rainy season mainly because of the difficult economy.
The many biz-in-a-box options are so ubiquitous that it’s terribly confusing.
Take your pick: floor cleaning, carpet cleaning, custom engraving, website building and hosting, sports nutrition, vending wholesale computers and electronic products and roof repairs.
The list goes on and on…
Whatever you can think of there’s a ready-made business-in a-box with a DVD waiting for you.
But here’s the bottom-line:
Do you really want to buy a business system off the shelf?
Will it hold your interest and passion?
Will it bring in enough money to be more than a sideline business?
Another important question about these ready-made businesses is how well do they really work?
Before sunrise the wind was blowing so strong that I knew we couldn’t take our diving vessel up the coast to dive for diamonds.
I didn’t bother to get up. I had grown up in False Bay and when the wind blew this hard we wouldn’t risk going out fishing on our ski boat.
Here on the isolated West Coast the Atlantic Ocean would smash tons of water against the shore when the sea was big and dangerous.
I heard knocking on my door. It was my fellow diver who announced that we were going to sea. I had better get up and come down to the jetty in a hurry. I told him this was crazy and that I’d tell this to our boss. His face told me that I was looking for trouble. Continue reading “This SOB boss taught the wrong way to be tough”
