Good ideas have the potential of turning into great businesses. But converting that idea into reality takes more than just courage and time. Aspiring entrepreneurs need to take some fundamental steps to get their idea in motion. These include finding the right market, assessing the ideas and the risks, and figuring out the financing. In this blog we dig into the five most basic steps to help you truly understand what is required mentality, physically and intellectually to make your from idea turn into a reality.
1. Market Research to Assess Feasibility
When you're an entrepreneur looking at starting a new project, the first step should always be market research. This will help you understand your target market, identify your target audience and your competition, familiarize you with market trends, and, thereby, help you size up your business opportunity. Assessing feasibility will help you have a firm base to start out from and enable you to create a sound business strategy. This kind of information will also provide you insights on gaps in the marketplace that you may be able to fill with your idea. Market research is by far the most important step for any business, and it’s important that you allocate enough time and energy to do it right. Remember to chart out the objectives or goals of your market research before you start out so that your findings give you quality information that you can use.
2. Assessing Your Ideas for Profitability and Success
Once you are convinced your idea has scope to turn into a profitable business venture, it’s time to run a new business idea assessment. This is how you'll determine if the idea is truly viable if there's potential for success, what kind of impact you could have on the market, and whether the venture could be profitable. Any new business assessment process will involve questions like:
- How big is the market you're looking at and is there room for growth?
- Are the trends in the market pointing toward expansion or contraction?
- How could you set yourself apart from the competition?
3. Evaluating Risk
New business risk assessment goes hand in hand with assessing the venture idea because determining if there's potential for the idea and a market for the business is all about mitigating risk. There is, unfortunately, always the possibility that any business—new or established—might fail, but performing a risk assessment will help to lower the chances of that happening. The major risks you'll have to evaluate include economic trends, financial risks, competition, consumer shopping and behavior changes.
You must assess each risk in great detail to fully understand your future challenges. This will be vital in helping you be prepared with a backup plan. Evaluate a risk based on two criteria, what are the chances that the risk will occur and what are the consequences of the risk to your business. Your risk assessment will help you devise fool proof risk management strategies.
Don’t forget to be clear on the legal aspects of starting your business. A good lawyer who specializes in business law can help you navigate the complex world of starting a business. They can also help you make informed business decisions right at the outset of your new career.
4. Creating a Business Plan and a Financial Model
Your next step will be to make a good business plan outlining your goals and vision, and the strategy you will employ to achieve them. One of the essential elements of a business plan is details on how you will withstand the risks associated with new businesses, how you'll make money from your venture and how you will finance it. For instance, are you going to be selling a product, and if so, through which channels? Or, will you be providing a service, and if so, to whom will you offer it? You also have to look at how much money you'll need for start-up costs, how much of an investment you need to get through the first few years of operation, and what kind of capital expenditures you'll have to make. Be sure to include things like a sales forecast, expense budget, and cash-flow statement in your business plan.
5. Financing Your Venture
So you are convinced that your idea has the potential to become a profitable venture, your business plan is in place, and now you arrive at the most important element of any new business. This final step required to turn your brilliant business idea into a viable operation is answering this question: how to get financing for it? This is where you come up with the money to fund all those financing issues you addressed in step four. When it comes to how to get money for a new business, you have a few different options. While the most obvious ones are getting a bank or government loan, using your savings, taking loans from friends and family, and tapping into your credit card, you can look at some other avenues too. Maybe you can try crowdfunding, or get the attention of some angel investors.
Once you have all this groundwork in place, you will be ready to start selling your product or service. Entrepreneurship is an exhilarating, but often bumpy a road. But for those who have set out and made a successful journey, there is no turning back.
At WSI, we’ve seen many entrepreneurial dreams turn into reality without having to go through the hassles of setting up everything from scratch. If the idea of a digital marketing franchise sounds good to you, do your research and come to us to chat up. Till then, keep your entrepreneurial dreams alive and let’s help you with some tips on how you can make your idea a successful reality.
