A professor who teaches on a Masters of Commercialisation and Entrepreneurship program recently said that our ability and experience in being able to generate ideas is not in question but felt that there was general inexperience in applying the tools for innovation to transform these ideas into something more tangible.
While I agree with the part about inexperience in commercialisation of business ideas, I question his assertion that our ability and experience in being able to generate ideas can be almost taken as a given. Yes, I think anyone, almost anyone, with the will to succeed can use their creative imagination, observation, listening skills and personal brainstorming to come up with a promising business idea. But how often does this happen? Is it really so easy?
In my experience I have seen many people from the very young to the more mature person who has come up with a promising business idea. However, because they lack of business experience their initial filters or screening processes that they use in their idea generation process often leads to their business ideas being off the mark.
What do I mean by this? I mean that they come up with wild and wacky ideas, which is all right as far as creativity goes, but because their ideas are not “bounded” in the reality of the marketplace and customer demand, they usually come up with ideas or solutions to problems that look good on the surface but need a lot of refinement before they can be turned into a viable proposition.
You see, a promising business idea ultimately needs to be practical. It needs to be something that can fill a gap in the marketplace that someone has usually seen requires a solution but has not thought out a compelling answer or solution. Because of the creativity movement a lot of people are told to go wild with ideas and come up with anything they please. It’s almost counterintuitive to at the outset think of how an idea could be translated into a practical solution for potential customers and at the same time be compelling enough to attract paying customers.
Let me put it another way. How come people who work in a particular business domain or area of expertise whether it be in medicine, technology, education or recreation can come up with ideas that are practical and will provide clear benefits for intended customers?
I think the reason here is that their domain expertise gives them their upper hand. They have experience in the field and know what has worked and what hasn’t. This enables them to increase their chances of coming up with a promising idea that can be turned into a viable source of income.
When did you last generate a promising business idea? How do you go about generating ideas and using a filter or screening process at the outset that helps you come up with better ideas than you would have generated if you haven’t used some sort of screening process.?
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It’s a resource that shows you a process that you can use to approach idea generation deliberately and then evaluate it for its commercial potential.
We know that the big crunch in commercialisation of a business idea is taking the idea and turning it into a tangible product or service that has clear benefits for potential customers.
“Breakthrough Ideas” (here’s the link: http://wp.me/P1A3Pz-2hY) will show you how to commercialise your idea using no-cost and low-cost methods that help you reduce the risk in each stage of commercialisation.
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