List the people whose advice you might find useful:
- Yourself
- Business contacts
- Family
- Friends
- Colleagues
- Former colleagues
What's the big idea?
Derek Wadlow runs a company called Motivity. He defines what the company does: 'By definition all our jobs are boring. Anything people don't want to do is grist for our mill.' In fact, Motivity has a turnover of over £750,000. Its business is difficult to describe but has, at one time or another, involved getting two tons of sand into one ounce bags for a board game; providing 500 artificial corpses at short notice for a horror film; and drilling two holes in several hundred eggs. No matter what the mundane task, Motivity is prepared to do it ... and make money from it. Such business brilliance may appear inspirationally simple. But it is not. In fact, Derek Wadlow decided to start his own business in 1967. 'I spent five years studying what sort of company I could create that required no capital, gave no credit, satisfied a demand, and had no competition.' In doing what other people can't or won't do, he created the business he imagined.
There are many people like Derek Wadlow who have worked hard at an idea and taken time to ensure it is a solid business proposition. This goes against the conventional wisdom that it only takes one great idea to make a fortune. The truth is that inspiration is only part of the battle; hard work and good fortune usually comprise the rest.
How do we identify an opportunity? It may appear to be ridiculously simple or simply ridiculous - a miraculous gadget which halves the amount of time taken by a household chore; a cunning attachment which reduces a car's fuel consumption. It doesn't really matter how stupid an idea for a product or service sounds. The question is whether people would be prepared to buy it.
Good ideas can strike at any time. In 1950, Frank McNamara was dining in a Manhattan restaurant. When the bill arrived he realized he had no cash. McNamara rang his wife to get him out of the embarrassing situation and began thinking how he could solve the problem. Within a few months he had persuaded 27 restaurants to join a credit card scheme under the name Diner's Club. Within a year the billings exceeded $ 1 million; the credit card was born.
Others take lessons from nature. After a day's hunting and with many burrs stuck to his clothes, Swiss engineer Georges de Mistral developed the idea of Velcro - a way of fastening fabrics firmly while leaving them easy to unfasten.
Sometimes ideas simply develop. Jean Widetch was trying to lose weight. She encouraged six of her friends to meet in her New York apartment to encourage each other. This was the birth of Weight Watchers - now in 24 countries and acquired by Heinz in 1978.
The golden rule was summed up by Aristotle Onassis: The secret of business is to know something that nobody else knows.' If the idea which no-one else knows happens to be a reflector placed in the middle of the road to help night-time visibility for drivers, the rewards are enormous. The idea does not have to be strikingly original. It can be distinctly unexciting. But it takes a particular - some would say wayward -mental approach to believe the mundane can be marvelous.
What makes a good idea?
Start with these four broad categories:
- Spot a need and come up with an inspired solution - such as cat's eyes, Velcro or Post-it notes
- Invent something, such as a game, which is tactile, challenging and ready for immediate use
- Take a popular product and improve or alter it - such as transforming roller skates into skateboards
- Change a traditional service or way of operating to make. It more attractive or cheaper, or improve upon it by making it faster, more accurate, more trustworthy or of better quality.
Few things are truly new. Genuine innovations are few and far between. You might come up with a genuinely new gadget or invention, but it is unlikely. In most fields large corporations are investing huge amounts of money in trying to come up with bright ideas. Anyone who can beat them to the solution deserves to make a million.
So, if a revolutionary new idea is unlikely (but not impossible), you are left with ideas which are new to you - this applies to a company going into a new field or adding a product to its portfolio; or improved old ideas - an enhanced version of an existing product or service which is repackaged, recycled or repositioned.
Ways to improve an old product:
- Change the color
- Add something new
- Make it smaller
- Make it bigger
- Make it quicker
- Use it for something new
- Make it cheaper
- Make it more expensive
- Package it with something else
- Improve service to customers
- Sell it to new markets
- Reduce its uses (make it specialist)
- Expand its uses
- Rename it
