5 tests my next business idea will have to pass - Can you add more?
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Something that is tied to the "Where are the customers?" point - conducting mini-'interviews'. Sometimes direct competitors are tough to come up with, but asking people if they would use your product (or at least think about it) would make a pretty good case.
Definitely! There is more due deligence that needs to happen before you finally begin the execution but out of tens of ideas one may have which one should you pick to even discuss with the potential customers is what I was getting at.
Learning from mistakes, I wanted to note down tests that my next idea is going to have to pass before I pick it up for execution.
1) Good is not good enough - Everyone have ideas. I have a lot of ideas - over 100 in my list. The next idea that I pick will have to be the one that I think makes most sense from business perspective. It sounds more like a common sense but I shamelessly acknowledge that I made the mistake of picking up some ideas in past that I thought were going to be 'quick ones' rather than 'best ones'. Not anymore, pick your best bet.
2) What’s the problem? - If I cannot explain the problem, my idea is solving - I ain't doing it.
3) Show me the money - I am not building a next-generation-free_of_charge-consumer-space-social-media-web app as my next venture. In my opinion playing field is not level anymore. There a lot of big players. Players with venture money and super smart mentors. I am not saying its impossible, its just that chances of success are too slim. Like Felis Dennis says - "You may not necessarily want to be in a glamorous sector of any market, and they are often very crowded"
4) Where are the customers? - There should be a market for what you are building. What’s the best way to validate that - What (What businesses) are going to be your competitors? Seth Godin says - "Competition validates you. It creates a category. It permits the sale to be this or that, not yes or no."
5) Validate the traffic from Google Keyword tool, compete.com and quantcast to make sure you get a feel of the market.
There are a lot of great articles from successful people, sharing experiences on how to be successful(http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-become-a-millionaire-in-three-years/) or how to execute an idea(http://jasonlbaptiste.com/featured-articles/how-to-go-from-idea-to-launching-with-paying-customers-in-8-steps/). The intent of the article above is to list tests you can run on the ideas in your pool of ideas and pick THE one that has higher chances of success.
What else do you do to make sure idea is worth executing? That it is worth spending 9-12 months of your life before you see the first dollar.