Tip of the Week: It's Just an Idea

by Suzanne Clarridge

While an idea is the premise of a business, actually starting a venture takes more than imagination.

An idea is intangible and has little value standing alone.

Bringing an idea to life requires hard work and commitment. It is execution, persistence, evolution, and adaptation that ultimately determines a company's success and survival.

Great business ideas are far easier to come by than great businesses.

Comments

[Emmanuel Bradley]

What should someone do if they have an idea but not the time or resources to execute?

[Suzanne]

If you have an idea but no money or time, it’s not the right time to start! What to do? You might wait until a future date to start your business. This is what I did. I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur and was always watching and listening for the right idea. I had the idea for what has ultimately become My Brands in about 1995 but didn’t actually start the business plan until 2000 and we didn’t start operations until June 1, 2001. The time I waited was actually helpful and good because I did a better job of testing my idea and looking for validation that it was, in fact, a marketable idea.

Which brings me to a point I can’t emphasize enough – just because you think you have a good business idea, doesn’t make it so. Doing casual research – talking to other entrepreneurs, prospective customers and learning about the market is very critical. It is a mistake to launch anything without some sense of its value to other people. This can be a tough situation because very often prospective entrepreneurs think that someone they talk to will steal their idea if they talk about it. I worried about that, too. The reality is that starting a business even with a great idea is hard work. It takes a big investment of both money and time. It is highly unlikely that someone will steal an idea but if it’s any comfort you can go to an attorney and have them draw-up a non-disclosure document and ask people to sign it. They probably won’t. I wouldn’t.

Another thing to consider is possibly selling your concept. Is there a company that might be interested in buying it? If you are marketing the idea to someone else, if it is patentable that a good thing to seek. Yet, patents can be difficult to do correctly, expensive and time consuming. You can fall back on the legal non-disclosure but many companies won’t sign them either. Remember, they may have already thought of the idea and signing such a document puts them at risk. They don’t need you – you need them and the burden is on you to persuade them otherwise.

Finally, if you try to sell your idea, remember the point of my blog tip is that there are lots of great ideas but the real value comes after all of the hard work. Companies don’t pay a lot for ideas because the value around the idea has not been proven by the marketplace or by the entrepreneur.

To sum it up, with no money or time your choices are to forget it all together, wait to pursue it or try to sell your idea.