You have a great idea and your mind starts running wild. You don’t know what you’re exactly supposed to do, but you know you have to do something.
I’ve been there in that exact position many times. The first couple times, I screwed up horribly. However, I learned some valuable lessons of things you should and shouldn’t do when you have that great idea.
These lessons have carried over and allowed me to turn many of my recent ideas into successful ventures. In this article, I share the 5 things you must do before putting your ideas into action:
1. Educate Yourself
Chances are, you don’t know everything about the market or industry for which your ideas resides in. Take some time to really learn about some key things:
– The major influencers
– The major companies in the space
– Trends from the last 5-10 years
– What the future seems to be like
It’s crucial to understand these things before diving into your business ideas. The more educated you are about the obstacles and challenges you will face, the more prepared you will be.
2. Survey Your Target Market
When I started my second company StatFuse, we thought we were on to something brilliant. We decided not to tell a single person about our ideas and we ran to patent attorneys all over Orange County.
We then decided to get a patent on our idea and invested almost $6,000 to do so. This all took place because we were terrified of someone else taking our ‘brilliant’ idea. Fast-forward to today and I can tell you that getting a patent that early was one of the biggest mistakes we made.
An idea is just a thought, anyone can have them. It’s not the first person with the idea that wins, but rather the person who executes that idea the best. You HAVE to learn about your audience and your market.
The only way you can do this is by literally going out and surveying people you would consider your target audience. Ask them questions and get feedback on your ideas. Your customers may not be thinking the same way that you are.
3. Draw Out What You Want To Create
Depending on the type of business you are trying to create, it’s great to map out exactly what you want to build. When we build websites or apps, one of the first things we start doing are the wireframes for the project.
It’s one thing to have thoughts floating around in your mind, but it’s extremely helpful to visualize your project on paper. You’ll notice flaws, corrections and discoveries that will save you a lot of headache in the long-run.
4. Understand The Needs Of The Business
In order to put your ideas into action, there are always needs that must be fulfilled. When I want to build a mobile application, my immediate need is finding an app developer who can build out the product since I’m more on the marketing and business side of things.
It’s crucial to understand what needs must be taken care of for your idea to successfully be put into action. Then, figure out how you want to fulfill that need. Do you want to pay someone out of pocket? Do you want to outsource? Do you want to bring on a partner for equity?
When you have a clear understanding of what you want to do, it’s a lot easier to sell your vision to others. Take your ideas and strategy to others to see how you can quickly put your idea into action.
5. Be Realistic
We’ve all had that amazing idea that we thought would be worth a million bucks. I’m all about dreaming big, but you have to be realistic as an entrepreneur. I always love to say that entrepreneurs have to be the most unrealistic realist ever.
What I mean by that is that you have to think and dream big while being extremely real about the situation at hand. Everyone hates to see that person who forecasts their 12 month revenue to be $10 million but has no actionable plan of getting it there.
Just because there are 10 million potential customers in a certain market does NOT mean 10% of those people will come and buy your product. You need to look at the growth curves and trends of competing businesses in the space.
If you plan on hacking growth, come up with a plan on exactly how. Don’t make projections based on what percentage of the market share you think you’ll capture or based on how large your market is.
Conclusion
In this article, I shared the 5 things you must do before putting your ideas into action. Do you have any other suggestions for entrepreneurs just starting out?
photo credit: nhuisman via photopin cc
