Studies show that up to 90% of new products fail. Even that big companies get it wrong. These are the companies with giant research and development budgets and the brightest minds. Their failure rate for new small businesses is about 90% in the first year. Entrepreneurs and start-up founders get it wrong too.
Developing a new idea requires you to start a new venture or small business. Many people who come up with a promising new business idea have never run their own business. This means that they have to learn how to firstly, develop a product or service which means commercialising it and secondly run a small business successfully.
Do you have what it takes to start and develop a new product or service from scratch and then run a successful venture?
To help you answer this question, let’s look at some basic requirements to successfully start and develop a new product or service:
1 Personal characteristics. You will need all the drive, ambition entrepreneurial skills, perseverance and patience to get a new product or service off the ground. Do yourself a favour and take a personal entrepreneurial test to see if you make the cut.
2 Business skills and experience. As I mentioned, commercialising a product or service idea eventually requires running a business. Do you know the difference between an income statement, balance sheet and cash flow statement? You will need to. Any business is hungry for cash and you need above everything else to know how to manage cash.
3 Marketing. Products or services don’t magically sell themselves. Someone needs the marketing and communications flay to get people interested in whatever you are selling and to convince them to buy. Even mediocre products can sell well through effective marketing. Just take a look around on the supermarket shelves and you’ll see that the “me-two” products are doing pretty well. Marketing requires knowledge of positioning, messaging, consumer or buyer psychology and behaviour as well as traditional and new media.
In taking your new business idea from mere concept, notion or thought to an actual prototype and then to commercialise it you will need to have experience in all find assistance with the following areas:
1 Developing new business ideas
2 The process for commercialising ideas
3 Financing the business idea
4 Implementing the business idea
5 Marketing your product/service/business
6 Running your business
Not many people have made developing the new business idea the speciality so it will be difficult to find adviser in this area, especially one that will lead you to successfully developing your product or service idea from concept to prototype and eventual product that will be distributed to different retail platforms. The other five areas I mentioned have many advisers but they will come with the large price ticket. Perhaps the most valuable will be in the marketing of your product or service or business because as I have mentioned products or services don’t sell themselves. With the correct marketing and selling of the benefits of a product or service, it can sell beyond expectations. Fans of the iPhone’s you early in the morning to buy the new iPhone when it is released each year.
If you are serious about taking your new business idea and developing it into a product or service and want to find out what’s required and how to go about doing it, then you need to get yourself a copy of “Breakthrough Ideas”. It will cost you far less than a consultation with a business adviser but will be priceless in helping you decide how to go about commercialising your promising new business idea. Get your copy here.
