What thoughts come to mind when we talk about starting our own business? Usually the first thing we think of is a business idea. We want to find a promising, good and relevant idea to work in a less competitive but at the same time profitable atmosphere.
The problem is that a person who wants to start his own business and thinks about dozens of ideas every day, each of them seems successful, interesting and promising.
But as the reality of modern business shows, no more than 5% of all startups are successful. Why is that? How to get into this category of happy people, how to choose a good and promising business idea?
Today we will try to answer these not simple but at the same time very important questions. In our article you will find 5 signs of promising business ideas. We assure you that all these signals are written based on our own experience, experience and knowledge of our business partners and close friends, who have a functioning, profitable business.
A good and promising business idea: how to know and recognize it?
1. Deep trust and commitment to what you are going to do
First of all, the viability of a business idea depends on your actions, willingness to work, goals and objectives that you set for yourself. If your main goal is to make money, chances are you’ll never get it. Of course, finance is a great incentive to work and develop your own business, but you only need to earn money as a means, as a way to achieve ever greater goals.
Entrepreneurship is a risk, and there are often black spots if you don’t make any money, but even work with a deeply underbudget. But believe in yourself, in what you do – these are the factors that determine the perspective of your chosen idea. Steve Jobs said, “Imagine today is the last day of your life. What would you want to do? If, among other things, you are on the right track to go to work. Your business will be successful.”
You must not only love what you do, but be a true fanatic, a freak ready to follow your goals, principles and ideals to the last breath.
2. A simple idea – a promising idea
Do not immediately try to create something majestic, grand, known all over the world. It doesn’t happen that way. If you don’t believe me and are still thinking about how to do something that could turn the world upside down, you risk staying in the thinking stage.
Look at the biggest companies in the world – Google, Facebook, Apple – and remember where they started. Social network Facebook initially did not intend to become the largest in the world, but only wanted to unite students from the best universities in the country, and how did that end? And Google, you know, they simply started organizing books in the library, writing various algorithms, which later became the basis for the search engine. About Apple, I’m sure everyone knows. Steve Jobs and Wozniak started out in a garage, where they built their first computers and never even dreamed of becoming a world leader.
In conclusion, ideas become great during the development process, not immediately after ‘birth’. By the way, think less and be afraid. As Sergey Brin said: “While you think that your competitors are launching a naked idea, you think about the development, they create a beta version, you think about where they can get the money from, they earn the first dollars, you think and decide to launch you, and your competitors already have the first million. You think they’re acting…’
3. The idea is easy to explain
We’ve already talked about the idea of being simple. But the simplicity is also that you have to explain the essence of the future project without much effort. A novice entrepreneur will often have to tell you what he does: his friends, potential partners, investors, customers. And if this explanation is delayed for a long time, if you yourself are confused and do not understand some things, think about whether it is worth doing this kind of activity?
I always give an example of Twitter. 140 symbols into which we must put all our thoughts. Therefore, try to describe the essence of your company in a few words. Of course, in 140 symbols it won’t be real, but a promising business idea should be able to convey literally a few sentences. And you can do that? Is this your idea? If so, that’s a big plus.
4. It doesn’t cost a lot of money
Now there are people who will object to me, but I maintain that a promising business idea does not require a lot of money. Of course, I only speak for the initial phase of concept development, the launch of the beta version and the first months of work.
If you already need tens or even hundreds of thousands at these stages, chances are the idea isn’t that good. If it is really smart, the beta version can be done on its own or at minimal cost, and then already presented to investors, presenting all the positive aspects of this company. Finally, I recommend using Mageworx extensions to minimize your expenses.
5. A small number of steps to the first win
When and how you will get your first profit from the project – it is difficult to say for sure, but no one will stop you from planning everything. And if already at the planning stage you can see that for the first profit you will have to go through many stages, then this business idea will be difficult to implement.
Why? So it’s actually very simple.
The more phases, the more additional resources, resources and assistance will be required for successful passage. Frankly, the promising business idea has a pretty short path to profit. Yes, this path cannot be completed in one month and not even in a year, but at least in stages, which will allow you to focus more seriously on each specific task.