This is for people who are considering kicking a business venture off, rather than entering into an established business.
All too often I talk to people who are going to start making a certain widget, selling a certain widget, designing a platform for this or an app for that. The individual I’m talking to is usually super excited as no one has ever come up with this idea. There is probably a good reason why no one has ever come up this idea before – because very few people want that widget. When you have that lightbulb moment and think that you have come up with the next multi–million dollar business idea, take a moment to sit back and identify who your target market might be, and if in fact there is a market at all.
Find that market, identify where you can add value to what is currently in the market and meet the market.
The bigger the market the better and it is in those sectors that you only need a slice of the pie. Do not get caught up in trying to take 100% of market share, this is often impossible, and even more often unnecessary.
Think critically what goods you are trying to manufacture/sell or what service you are trying to provide. Has this been done before, is it being done currently by someone who can do it far better than you, or have you actually stumbled across a good idea. If you have stumbled across a good idea, carefully review the market and undertake some due diligence to ascertain whether or not your widget is welcome.
The cost of taking some time and doing some research before launching all out product or web development is well worth it. Tim Ferriss’ book “The Four Hour Work Week” has some good tips on cheap and effective marketing you can do before buying/distributing/manufacturing that can assist you to work out if other people see the value in what you are wanting to do.
You may be the next Jobs, Bezos or Zuckerberg, but do some market testing before you go all in.
Whenever you are looking to sell something, listen to the market – it is always telling you something.