Your idea for a product or service is the starting point of your business.
You wouldn’t have come up with your idea if you did not believe that you are more than the sum total of everything you are at this moment.
Your idea has an energy that propels you to act to achieve the success you seek.
But can you really succeed with just an idea?
Absolutely not.
Business statistics show that a high percentage of new businesses fail in the first five years. Ideas that bombed.
Small business lenders and consultants will give you failure rates that are dreadful so they can sell their services.
Let’s just agree that small business failures are unnecessarily high.
What about execution?
When you introduce your idea you may have got the timing wrong.
Your product or service may be too early for the market. The competitor may launch a superior product or service. Legislation may change making your product difficult or impossible to sell. Your selected market may collapse – not so uncommon in this economy.
What can you do about it?
You did much paper piloting of your idea before you introduced it onto the market. Now you have to go back to the drawing board and drastically revise your product or service.
What role do the skills, experience and energies of the individual play in the success of the business?
The individual entrepreneur – you – has to have developed special qualities before the product introduction. How long have you spent learning the business, the industry, the skill set you will need?
What about the mind of the strategist – can you revise your business plan for the umpteenth time, see the impacts on the income statement, cash flow forecast and balance sheet and come up with a new marketing plan in a morning?
Business success requires all three ingredients in combination:
Idea + Execution + Individual.
Businesses is about opportunity (the idea) and managing risk (execution). Successful businesses make it work with the right individuals (you).