Ideas are the things that really matter in any business. Whether you are a start up or a pro-businessman, you cannot deny the importance of an idea in business.
And if you want to make the most productive use of your start up finance, you need to have a very strong idea that is capable of seeing your business grow and develop.
As a start up, it isn’t always easy coming up with a totally unique, highly valuable idea. Sometimes you think you may have stumbled across a concept that no-one else has ever developed before, only to discover that someone else is already doing it and making a lot of money from it. Or you may think you’ve come up with a genius gem of an idea, but when you start your planning and research, you discover it is far from simple to execute, or far from profitable to make work.
In order to answer the question of what makes a really good start up idea… one that is better than everyone else’s, it’s a good idea to use The ‘Idea Compass’ model. According to this model, the following factors make your idea worth working on and spending that precious start up finance on:
Table of Contents
It strikes your emotions
An idea that is close to your heart will always make you work for it. For any business to be successful, you have to really believe in its potential and have the drive to push for it to happen.
This is only possible if you hear a voice from inside of you that pushes you to make a head start on the idea.
Only then your idea will have the strength and stamina to overcome all the obstacles that will inevitably be found in your way at some point or other on your journey to success. But it must be an idea that gives you goosebumps, and you have an emotional connection to, to make the hard work doable.
If it is unique and does not depend on anyone else’s idea
Another important parameter to judge the quality of your idea is to assess its uniqueness. The more exclusive your idea is, the more it will grab the attention of the market.
In a society of battling ideas, only those ideas which seem new to people will win out and sustain. If there is a slightest possibility that your idea depends on someone else’s to work, then drop it. This is because the efficacy of your idea remains only up to the point where you are its sole initiator.
The moment you start looking for someone else’s help for the practical manifestation or completion of your idea, it will lose its originality. The genuineness of the idea is the foremost requirement for it to be called great.
Your idea should be real to the extent that no one should get the chance to compare it with any other competing or existing idea.
Assess the obstacles in the way of your idea’s practicality
Every idea is coupled with challenges which will inevitably place obstacles in the way of its execution. It is perfectly natural to find it difficult to bring your idea to the market.
But on the same hand, the intensity and the gravity of the complications determine the practicality of your idea. If your idea has obstacles in its way which can be easily crossed over, then go for it and consider it a good and profitable business idea to spend your start-up finance on.
However, if the troubles are breathtakingly complex and insurmountable and cannot be removed, then consider your idea half erased already. The more troubles, difficulties and hitches an idea has, the more difficult its execution becomes. Therefore, go for an idea that has fewer and more easily covered hindrances in its way.
Evaluate the resources you require
An idea whose execution requires limited resources to make it work can be considered a good and productive idea. This is because the resource-finding part of starting up is one of the most difficult parts to complete. An idea which requires resources that are rare and cannot easily be found will consume much of your energies and time. This will inevitably lead to a delay in its execution which will ultimately make it a redundant idea.
In short, a good idea is always preceded by an emotional reaction and a desire to work on it; a complete surety of its originality; and an assessment of the less troublesome problems involved and the availability of ready-to-use resources for its execution. If these elements are present in your idea, you can happily start spending your start-up finance on it, confident in the knowledge that it is a good idea!