Eureka! You’ve got a Genius Idea. Now What?

Do you have an idea just crazy enough to be genius? These tips can help you develop your idea and as good as it is, make it even better! First keep in mind, not all crazy ideas make it. Let’s be honest, every thought you have isn’t going to be a million-dollar idea. Apologies, if I’m the first to break that to you. However, if there’s an idea that comes back to you time and time again, maybe there’s something there worth exploring.

Tip #1 – Don’t Quit Your Day Job

Off the bat, that hardly sounds like a vote of confidence. But this is a practical tip. If you can’t afford to be jobless for a couple years, it’s best to keep some kind of income. It’s true that it’s harder for your business to reach its potential  without 100% dedication and focus. However, that level of commitment isn’t often needed in the beginning when your idea isn’t a full-fledged product or service. Your willingness to devote more of your time to your burgeoning idea can be a useful indicator of whether it’s an idea that’s going to stick or just a passing thought.

Tip #2 – Identify the Need You’re Solving

Most successful products and services meet a need. Some needs are more general/broadly felt and some are more niche. At the end of the day, a product or service is successful because enough of a need exists to keep you in business. If you have a great idea for a product or a service, ask yourself critically, “What problem am I solving?” Even something like a fidget spinner meets the need of people who need something to keep their hands busy.

Part 2 of this is if solutions to the need already exists. Is there anyone out there currently solving (or attempting to solve) that need? This research is critical for a few reasons:

1. Other players in the market give validation that your idea does indeed have a market opportunity. That’s a good sign!
2. This initial research will uncover whether your idea has already been done by someone else. That would be a bummer if it’s already been done well but at least you didn’t quit your day job (Tip #1!).
3. Understanding who your competitors are in the space will help you refine your idea to beat your competitors if you see room for improvement!

Tip #3 – Identify Who Needs Your Product / Service

Once you’ve established that your product / service is unique and meets a need currently being unfulfilled, next is to understand who benefits. Determine who your target customer base looks like. Learning as much as you can about your target customers (i.e. the people who might be willing to pay for your product / service) is essential. Knowing your customers helps you shape your product / service to truly meet their needs. Knowing your customers also informs your marketing strategy and how to most effectively reach them.

Find your target customers and talk to them. Ask them about the needs your idea solves and how they are currently solving that need. Understand as much about them as possible — even about things that don’t necessarily relate directly to your idea. Your goal is to talk to enough people, have real conversations and truly learn about the problem you’re trying to solve and who you are trying to solve it for. Remember, these are  your potential customers.

Tip #4 – Create a Prototype

This can be more challenging for some ideas than others. Create as close a resemblance to your idea as you can. If you are making a physical product, try to create the actual product with the closest materials you can muster. If it’s software, create a low-fidelity prototype of the software. This can be paper and pen version or maybe a powerpoint presentation that “fakes” the user’s interactions. If it’s a service you are providing, try to think through what tasks and deliverables you’ll be performing as part of your service. Is there a way you can create your service on a small scale? If it’s an experience you are creating, can you do that on a small scale (e.g. pop-up).

Tip #5 – Test Your Prototype

You know who your target users are and how to find them. And you have a prototype of your idea to solve their need. Now put the two together and test it!  The proof is in the pudding as they say. You will never know how good your idea is until you put it in front of people. Bear in mind that just testing your prototype with people who resemble your target customers is a win in and of itself — regardless of what they think of your prototype.

Be ready for cold hard truth. In fact, encourage it. The only way your idea will get better is if you get critical feedback from the people who will be buying it. Any idea can sound like a million dollar idea when it’s rattling around inside an echo-chamber. But getting your idea out there in front of people is how you’ll truly find validation that it’s an idea worth pursuing… an idea worth paying for!

In a past life, I had the idea to combine two passions of mine – boardgaming and coffee. The idea was to open a board game cafe with a small entry fee to gain access to a library of hundreds of games.  I took over an existing boardgame Meetup group that the organizer was no longer going to support. My collection was too big to bring to the group and I wasn’t willing to invite strangers into my home. I settled on supplying my list of boardgames to the group and took requests for what to bring. I always scheduled the Meetup at a coffeeshop to get that cafe vibe. Initially I didn’t collect any money, but I eventually worked my way to charging a nominal fee.

Through this experience I observed how many people patronized the coffee shop. Did they buy food/drink during the 2-4 hours our group was there? How many people liked the games I had to offer and requested them? How many came regularly? Did that drop off after I started charging an “entry fee” just to show up and play games?

I learned a lot during this time (which was about a year because the Meetup cost was an annual fee). While it wasn’t 100% the experience I envisioned creating, it gave me enough proof of concept to continue fostering my idea.

Now, I’m not saying spend years on your idea. Being first to market on innovative ideas is often a big advantage. Take the time you need to have confidence in your idea and learn what you need to make it a success.

Tip #6 – Rinse and Repeat

Continue to refine your idea using the feedback you’re getting. If you can continue to improve the quality and fidelity of your prototype that would be great as well. The closer you can get your idea to the final outcome the better.  It might never be possible to get your prototype to be the finished product, but you will get better feedback the closer it is to the real thing.

In a future phase of my “prototyping”, I reserved a conference room and invited a group of boardgamers to a boardgame afternoon. We set up a small board game library of about 70 games. We brought in shelving to make it look as much like a “board game library”. The coffee aspect of our idea was prototyped by our make-shift coffee cart, using our home coffee brewing equipment. We’d already tested in a coffeeshop setting. This time, we were going for the “game library” feel. And it worked! Even on a small scale, we got the reaction we were hoping for “Wow, you have ________! I’ve been wanting to play that!” There were many people impressed by the small collection of board games I curated for this test. We setup a survey on a laptop so people could give anonymous feedback while they were there.

One thing to note is this was a completely free event, but it wasn’t pricing we were testing. We were testing the experience and not price tolerance. In my experience, optimizing your product/service before you price test offers you the best chance for success. Your price testing needs to be indicative of the value people are willing to place on your product not the quality of it.

Know what you’re testing and develop a strategy to test that particular aspect of your business. The better you can isolate test factors the stronger the correlation between what you’re observing and what you’re testing.

Tip #7 – Sell It!

When you get your idea to a point where you’re ready to put it in the hands of real customers, don’t hold back, start selling! If you can do this at a small scale, then that’ll give you an opportunity to test price points. You can see what real people are willing to pay for your product.

Consider fairs, conventions, pop-up shops, as places you can sell your products. Maybe you can set up a consignment arrangement with local coffee shops. Online shops like Etsy are great for certain business ideas, but getting discovered can be harder online because there’s so much more competition.

Maybe crowd-sourcing is the way to go! Crowd-sourcing fundraising platforms like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo are great ways to raise money for your idea. This is especially useful if your idea can’t really be done on a small scale (e.g. if it requires special manufacturing).

You have to be willing to put some time, money and energy into marketing during this phase. It’s never too early to be thinking about referral systems. Generating good word of mouth from existing happy customers is an effective marketing resource.

Final Tip

When the money starts rolling in so fast you can’t count it… then it’s time to quit your day job! =) All joking aside, you’ll know whether it’s time to quit your day job. Only you can really decide how much financial risk (if any) you’re willing to take by choosing not to have 9-5 job.

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DISCLAIMER: The information and advice I offer on this site are 100% from my own experience, understanding and independent research. I encourage you to do your own research, form your own opinions and practice your own strategies. Please share what works with the community.