Do you have a desire or an idea for the “next big thing”?
You may think your idea is best thing since sliced bread right?
But it’s a good idea to test it out before you sink a lot of time and money developing a business or product for which there’s no market.
Here are six steps to help you make sure your product is something the world wants, before you launch it.
- Wait, think then build a prototype or test service.
Although you’re excited about your new business idea, you might want to wait a while before testing it. After you’ve gone through the process of writing down a bunch of ideas, We recommend that you don’t rush into building a business plan or recruiting the team, it is best to wait a few weeks to see which ideas really stick with me. Keep in mind only to move forward if you have a burning feeling that the world really needs your idea.
Once you come to term with your idea, the best way to test a business idea is to build some prototype and show it to people to get some honest and authentic feedback
- Build a minimum viable product.
A minimum viable product, or MVP, is the simplest form of your idea that you can actually sell as product. Using the principles of Lean Six Sigma to test and market early in the development process so that any tweaks or changes are in response to real feedback from the target audience.
Lean Six Sigma is a powerful, proven method of improving business efficiency and effectiveness. In a nutshell, here are the key principles of Lean Six Sigma Business Transformation to bear in mind:
- Focus on the customer.
- Identify and understand how the work gets done (the value stream).
- Manage, improve and smooth the process flow.
- Remove Non-Value-Added steps and waste.
- Manage by fact and reduce variation.
- Involve and equip the people in the process.
- Undertake improvement activity in a systematic way.
- Run it and get feedback.
When you have your first prototype or test service ready, take it to your potential target customers. You should talk or do a survey at least 50 potential customers, to see if they identify with the problem the same way you do, In other words, you need to find out if this is a real problem for a majority of your target market, or just a few.
However, to really put your new business idea to the test, select your 50 potential clients or customers carefully. Identify people in that target you know to be skeptical and critical. These people could be irate customers from previous encounters, or friends or family members who always take the glass-half-empty perspective. We highly recommend handpicking your test group and then asking these people to pick your ideas apart.
- Tweak and Refine it to suit your test market.
Get ready to show mock-ups to targeted groups, school, community groups. Demonstrate your mock-ups and let the group to try it out, I can assure you, you will find the feedback from the group invaluable in fine-tuning the original idea. By get your target group involved in the research process you will quickly see how they react to the mock-ups. Pay attention to their behaviours and body language. Once you have the feedback from the groups you can refine your idea/product. If you received positive feedback this will tell you are onto something good and then you can start focusing in building out the product, raising money market our idea etc.
- Create a test website with social media
Once the word is out about your product or business, the target market needs a place to get more information about it or to show it to their friends. Building a simple website and using social media are ideal tools to provide information and monitor how many people are interested in what you are selling. You’ll be able to tell if the idea will get traction from the number of click-throughs on the ads, and the number of people who fill in your form.
- Create a marketing plan and use it.
All of the preparatory work means nothing if you do not perform enough actions to get a good measure of response. Once you have a viable product, you need to be able to act on the interest in it.
At ArtSHINE we like to use a rule we call 100 / 1,000. Make a list of 100 things you can do to market the product, and then execute that list of 100, and in the process, speak with 1,000 people about the product. If you commit to do this, you will have data on your product. You’ll know who is interested in it, what marketing strategies worked and didn’t work, and how you can improve,
Want to learn more?
It’s as simple as 1… 2… 3…
- Just starting out? CLICK HERE
- Been working in your business for two years or more? CLICK HERE
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We’re here to help you to take action just like we’ve helped thousands of other entrepreneurs, business owers and creative professionals all around the globe.
Now is the time to let your passion SHINE.
Now is the time to Make Tomorrow Today!
To your success,
Vinh Van Lam & Stuart Horrex
Your Coaches CoSydney & ArtSHINE
all of which are invaluable steps in getting your idea and business off the ground.
