Have you ever had a crazy business idea that you fell in love with at first sight? If your answer is yes, you’re not the only one. It’s easy to fall in love with an idea and it becomes your dream. You think, that’s it. But the key to the success of your business is the question – will your customers fall in love with it too? Many ideas “die” because we love them just the way they are – perfect. Fearful of losing this treasure, or of being exposed to criticism, opinions or even potential judgement, we forget the key steps that lead to success.
An entrepreneurial idea can be the start of a great business, but it needs to be well developed before it can reach the market. Lean methods are powerful tools for developing an entrepreneurial idea, enabling it to enter the market faster and more successfully.
The first stage of developing an entrepreneurial idea is the ideation phase, where possible solutions and improvements are considered. In this step it is important to focus on solving a specific problem and not on too broad an area. This is followed by the validation phase, where it is important to get the opinion and feedback of potential users or the market. The MVP (minimum viable product) method allows us to quickly prototype and test whether the idea has the potential to be developed further.
The next step is the business model phase, where key activities, resources, distribution channels, customer segments and the revenue model are defined. When developing the business model, it is important to think about the scalability and growth potential of the business. In this step, it makes sense to use the Business Model Canvas or Lean Canvas methods, which allow for a fast and efficient creation of the business model.
After the business model is built, there is a prototyping phase where functional prototypes are built and tested on a small group of users. Here it is important to think about the method of financing, which can be start-up funding or financial input from investors. It is important to focus on the key functionalities that are important to the user.
The final stage is market entry, where the product or service starts to be sold. Here it is important to think about the marketing strategy and distribution channels. Growth Hacking can be used at this stage to enable rapid growth in the market through innovative marketing approaches. It is also important at this stage to listen to user feedback and to constantly adapt and improve the product or service.
If you are about to embark on your entrepreneurial journey and need further information, you can contact the POMP partners who will be happy to advise you.
In conclusion, our advice is: “Fall in love with the problem, not with the business idea”.