You need a lot more than the business idea

The world has changed in many ways over the past two decades in which we’ve been trading.

Perhaps one of the most significant changes is the emergence of mental health as something of importance, and in extreme cases the alleged abuse of it as an excuse for a lack of resilience and maturity in some people.

If you’ve followed our content long enough, you are well aware that our job isn’t to sugar-coat things but to share the truth with you the way we’ve experienced it, and help you leverage our journey for your ultimate success in life and in business.Today we’re talking about the ugly truth: you need far more than a brilliant idea to build a flourishing business.

The idea is merely a snowflake on the tip of the iceberg

There are probably millions of books, articles, published studies, medical journals, videos, documentaries and white papers about how many thoughts the average human being has each day.

Your business idea starts out as one of these.

There is nothing special or unique about it the precise moment that you first think about it. Maybe millions more people share that exact thought with you — possibly in the exact same moment!

Your idea doesn’t entitle you to anything

This is where it starts feeling like the big bag world is out to get us.

With all the sugar-coating going on in the world, all the participation trophies and rewards for mediocrity, we see billions of people affected by this.

Having an idea doesn’t entitle you to anyone’s help, support or services.

The world’s population doesn’t live in your mind

Another hard reality lots of aspiring entrepreneurs face is that they believe in most of their own ideas and envision it working perfectly, often without fully thinking it through, validating and field testing it.

The moment another person disagrees, opts out or asks particular questions, the aspiring entrepreneur in question gets emotionally charged and reactive, as if their personality is being attacked.

What you have to understand is that your business idea is just a fabrication in your mind: it’s only a potential solution and a lot more is needed for it to become a real business.

What do you do with your business ideas?

Idea validation is taught in many courses and workshops.

There are a wide range of methods for validating your idea and the one we prefer to use is to make at least one sale (Haralambous, 2021).

We’ve learned that it’s critical as a next step in turning an idea into a business.

Not every idea is a great idea

Being able to self-assess, test, validate and move forward from ideas is another important and useful entrepreneurial skill.

Don’t take it so personally if you have a bad idea.

Get it out of your system so you can move onto the better ones.

You need people

Sir Richard Branson once said that scale didn’t matter when understanding what a business was: it involved a group of people.

There are different groups of people who will serve distinct functions in the process of turning your idea into an actual business.

Contractors, suppliers and service providers

If you have a product or service idea, you may need raw materials, transportation and several services from other specialists to help you create your product or deliver your service. Let’s look at a few examples:

Food product eg. nut butter

For a product like this, you need to meet food safety standards and transport your finished product to buyers, which could be direct consumers or retailers. Unless you have all the required skills and certifications (unlikely) you will likely need food safety consultants and some kind of logistics or delivery partner.

Medical consulting rooms

In this scenario you might be a qualified practitioner, wanting to open your private consulting rooms. You can provide the service directly but you will need specialised tools and equipment, and have to order consumables for hygiene purposes.
Marketing agency

Even when there’s no need to physically have a factory or an office and you can deliver a service remotely, your business will need administrative services like that of a virtual assistant or accountant.

The bottom line is that your idea cannot become a business all by itself. It needs help and that comes from the appropriate people.

Employees

You can’t mess around with this. Your decisions affect how much food sits on the tables of your staff. You may even need a consultant to help you determine your hiring strategy, and a financial expert to confirm what kind of budget to work with.

When you have employees, you have a set of duties and responsibilities in managing tax and payroll administration, skills development plans, promotions, device management and disciplinary policies, health and safety regulations — see how it all piles up?

The business idea can’t hire, train, motivate or discipline employees for you. You need to consider this before launching head first into the business world for each and every bright idea you believe you have.

Customers

Customers are a critical group of people. You could have the best product or service by your definition but it’s meaningless if nobody shows interest in buying it from you.

Ideas don’t sell themselves. It requires marketing skills and sincere effort (especially if you don’t have a structured go-to-market budget).

Investors

Your idea won’t raise its own capital. If you need money to rent factory space, invest in distribution and service delivery, and cover salary costs for a period of time, it’s going to require investment.

You have to open and nurture relationships with the right investors who will support you financially until your business case can be proven or disproven.

You need processes and discipline to leverage them

To actualise an idea and create a business from it, you need processes (which mean nothing without discipline).

Processes help you define and complete tasks effectively, in the right priority order and to the right quality standards, to meet your business goals. The world’s most successful businesses have processes for everything from the financial operation to research and development.

Your best business ideas still can’t develop these processes for you.

You need tools

As in the examples we mentioned earlier, you might need special equipment in a factory setting. Maybe you need software or specialised seating. It’s one more layer you really need to consider before you go out and call yourself a business owner, CEO, startup founder, Director or any other creative leadership titles that come to mind.

Moral of the story: you need a lot more than an idea, to build a successful business.

Learn more about world-class Fractional CMO Services that can help you on your way from concept to conquering the market.

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