When can an 'Idea be considered as a 'Business Idea'

When can an ‘Idea’ be considered as a ‘Business Idea’

So, in my day to day life if I used to come across a problem which I thought many others like me are facing, I used to think of a solution for it. The moment I could think of a solution, I further used to think as to how can it be implemented. On getting a decent answer, I used to consider it as a business idea and some times even business model/plan

If you think the same way, go on reading…

Note: 

1. The following is just my understanding; it may be right, wrong, or incomplete. I am writing what I am learning and will keep on updating.
2. The following content is extremely brief and do not cover the entire explanations. If you feel the need to discuss any one of them, please feel free to comment or come in touch.

Much of the following learning is from Kunal and referred from the book – Product Design & Development by Karl Ulrich

So, The ‘problem’ we referred above is basically a ‘market opportunity’; solution – ‘concept’; implementation - ‘concept execution’; the process – ‘some parts of product development’ and business idea/plan/model – ‘Getting lucky’

One simple reason is - The entire ‘thing’ is based on gut feeling and assumptions.

Have a look at the following steps –

1. Assess the market opportunity

• 1. Interview user, lead users and document their experiences of the current scenario.
• Their frustrations, complaints, what are they happy about, what are they looking forward to.
• 2. Consider lifestyle, demographics and technology variations

• Ethnicity, financial background, demography, personal background
• 3. Carefully study competitors’ products 

• Don’t stop at google search. Ask your users about their information channel to get an idea of your competitors

Result – Mission Statement, defining your business goals (complicated, will discuss in upcoming blogs), market segmentation, assumptions and constraints

2. Concept Development 

• 1. Identify Customer Needs of your target market segment 

• For example - you are working on a softwar then 2 of the customer needs can be -

• easy to customize
• Free

• 2. Prepare a Customer Need Metric and divide the needs into primary, secondary and tertiary

• Primary – Free – 4/5 (In metric)
• Secondary – Easy to customize – 2.5/5
• 3. Make target specifications as to what should be at least there in your product/offering

• Revenue model should be to support free
• Platform should be php based to support cutomization
• 4. Start brainstorming and propose all possible solutions i.e. generate concepts

• 5. Eliminate one by one very very carefully, until you reach to the most suited concept. Do trade offs in accordance to your mission statement and customer needs.

Result - What you now have may be considered as a business idea.

There is a lot to be done before you reach the business model. You can consider the above just 10% of what it takes for product development or a business plan.

Tips –

1. Refer to someone who really understands people well for designing your interview questionnaire. This should be completely independent of the ‘concept’ you have in mind. 

2. Bring in a consultant, a highly experienced professional of that domain in the concept development stage. Consult - Competitor study, market opportunity, market segmentation, concept generation from him and also verify your ground work / study with the same.

Some FAQs for the above –

1. Why do I need to assess the market opportunity when my gut feelings are generally right and very strong?

Because, even if you are right it is important to know what is market segment and define it. Down the line during execution you will realize that you burnt a lot of energy because you did not position your product right

2. Why is market Segmentation required? Everyone associated in that domain will need my product?

Never can be a case when your product can suit just everyone. You have got to be focused and understand who is your centre of focus while working on your business.

3. Why do I need to make the customer needs metric.  I know what all they need, isn’t that enough?

While executing your plan, you will several times have to make trade offs where one need will have to be given priority over the other. If you do not prioritize customer needs, you will always be confused.

4. Why do I need to look at other solutions when I know mine will solve the purpose?

Sometime down the line, you will come across a competitor who has adopted the other solution. You will not get confused at that time because you know why you did not pick up that one. You need to be absolutely clear on ‘Why not blah blah’. You should be heading steady and strong.

5. I already know that my idea is a good business idea. People are already earning from it, I am going to execute the same in a better way? Ex- Software Company, Retail Shop

Sure! Go ahead, but that will only be a lifestyle business, never even think that you will consolidate and become a millionaire from that

6. I just want to earn short time, will take an exit after earning some money, then why all this?

'Business' is not short term, u r basically looking for a jackpot, chances of which are one to hundred or even less.

7. There are so many business I know who didn't do the above, yet they are super successful, how?

They were just at the right time at the right place. That is not called 'business'.

Future Work –

I will be trying to write blogs on each of step mentioned above explaining through examples.

Types of Marketing Strategies

When I started marketing for my venture, I had lots of idea. I used to pen down all of them. But never did I work in an organized manner in terms of making a marketing plan. I always felt the need of knowing an exhaustive set and finally picking up the ones which I wanted to execute.

So finally, I tried to list down the various marketing strategies in professional terminology. You must have come across all of these, but its good to have it somewhere mentioned together.

Find below, various marketing Strategies / Categorization and their as small as possible explanation I can think of. With this close to exhaustive set you may get help to prepare your marketing plan well.

A

Ambush Marketing

Marketing in an event without being a sponsor of it -

Possible cases -

Giving a talk in a conference related to your domain.

Can be Very Very Effective

Article Marketing

Writing an article about your business and advertising through it -

I really don't think it makes sense until you write an article in a third person's language, this will basically mean referral marketing.

Not so Effective

Article Video Article

Making a video from text resources -

One needs to be very creative for this. If you can do it yourself do it, it can be GREAT. But if you need to pay for it, consider paying for some other marketing resources.

Can hit the jackpot for you. Its extremely viral.

C

Cause Marketing

Marketing by a 'for Profit' Organization for a social cause with or without cooperative efforts of a Non-Profit Organization.

Basically adding a social flavor in marketing campaigns. Its for BIG companies, not small or medium.

'Save Tiger' by Aircel. Making your customer emotionally attached to you.

Communal Marketing

Public Involvement to make your advertisement, so that your advertisement can connect to more similar people.

Maggi did it, just a while back.

Again, only for BIG companies

Reality Marketing - Reality shows, an extension to it.

Community Marketing

A strategy to create interaction among target audience and customers. Topics are mostly focused on some customer needs.

Buzz going out about Facebook privacy settings is basically community marketing

Again, for big profiles, having a large audience.

Cross / Partners / Affiliate Marketing 

Partnering up with complementary product/service businesses for needs, leads, or even monetary compensation.

The most powerful for start up and small businesses. You just need to have one speciality in order to leverage for any other need.

D

Direct Marketing

Directly reaching out to your customers involving an emphasis on trackable, measurable, positive responses from consumers (known simply as "response" in the industry) regardless of medium.

   1.           Direct Mail

   2.           TeleMarketing

   3.           Email Marketing

   4.           Door-to-door

   5.           Leaflet

   6.           Brochure

   7.           Voicemail

   8.           Coupons

   9.           Media

10.           Next Best Action Marketing (Discussed Below)

The most powerful for many businesses

TV direct marketing would be a 4 sec advertisement asking for direct response.

Database Marketing

Marketing using databases of potential customers.

Kind of essential in this era.

Permission Marketing - I guess all of you here, would understand that by name, nothing more than that in it.

G

Gamification

Introducing a gaming environment at an interaction point with customers to drive participation and engagement.

Very Interesting and new concept.

Startups do not need to invest in designing apps and all for this. Thanks to some gamification companies - Bunchball, BigDoor, Reputely

Global Marketing

Marketing on a worldwide scale based on global relationships

Aditya Birla group did this some time back

Only for BIG companies

Guerrilla Marketing

Unconventional, relies on creativity rather than budgets. Should be based on human psychology.

Concentrate on profit than sales, growing customer relationships than new customers, cooperating than competing, one product or service than many, individuals or small groups than large groups

Hundreds of books available, learn but do not replicate... Most important - Be Creative and unconventional

Small, medium, large business, all can advantage from it

Buzz - Get people talking among themselves. Mouth-to-Mouth

Viral - Self iterating marketing strategies.

UnderCover - Consumers do not realize they are being marketed. An actor wearing a brand in a personal public appearance or chatting over internet

I

Inbound Marketing

Get found by potential customers

SEO, the biggest of inbound marketing. SEO in itself is big enough to specialize over several years. I believe its the answer to all e-commerce websites.

Influencer Marketing

Concentrate on one or small group of individuals who have influence over potential buyers.

L

Loyalty Marketing

Focus on growing and retaining existing customers.

Card Carrying in most of the big retail stores.

M

Multi-Level Marketing / Referral / Channel / Network Marketing

Strategy, compensation (not a salary/fixed amount) to promoters/associates/partners for not only sales made by them but sales made by other similar people introduced by them in the structure

Amway is based on it.

Awesome, IF you can execute it. My suggestion, keep away from it.

N

Nano Marketing 

Personalized tactics, based on psychology and social media.

Nano Car by TATA, they over ruled their TV advertisement to go for Nano Marketing

New Media Marketing
In-comprises various new media, blogs and social networks. This is spiral, you can use these platforms for other mentioned marketing too.

Next Best Action Marketing (Direct Marketing)

Consider the actions you can take for a specific customer and execute the best one.

For Inbound Marketing, use it for lead to sales

For B2B, a very powerful strategy

P

Proximity Marketing

Very very interesting. Localized wireless advertising. Transmission through bluetooth, GPS, GSM or WiFi. Interested customers can accept to receive through a device capable of receiving the transmission.

W

Word of mouth / Evangelism Marketing

Happy, satisfied customers doing a word of mouth marketing for you.

The most effective and must marketing for every business

Please feel free to touch base if I can add more to this list.
Cheers!