My friend Steve once told me, "ideas are cheap." He was right. They are cheap. The real challenge is taking an idea from concept phase to market place, or FROM IDEA TO IMPLEMENTATION. After you have come up with the idea or have identified a problem that needs solving, here's how to begin.
- Commit the idea to paper. This gives it life.
- Develop a revenue model around the concept, ie subscription, advertising, affiliate, etc. If the idea survives this test, proceed to step 3.
- Write a business plan. This converts the idea, which is really just a 1 cell embryo, into a 6 week old fetus: you may not tell anyone else about it, but you are starting to get excited.
- Do research: Nothing fancy needed here, but some gentle field research, Google searches, informal focus groups may let you know that the fetus can develop into a baby or perhaps it can not. But you'll discover it's fate before you invest more time and money into the project.
- Speck-it out: Build a mock-up version of the business. In-expensive software can help here, or pen and paper works as well. Be as detailed as possible. Re-visit, re-work, & re-imagine the project often. Try to poke holes into it. Pick it apart. Because the next step is either. . .
- Abandon or commit.
