How often have you said or heard somebody say ‘I know my idea is a good one but I’m not sure if there’s really something in it or if there is enough there to warrant me giving up the day job & pursuing it full time?’
All too often entrepreneurs and established businesses rush ahead with new product or service ideas and forget to ask themselves some fundamental questions to establish whether it does in fact have commercial viability.
We’ve had a very busy start to the year working almost exclusively on feasibility studies across a wide range of market sectors and again it’s the same key challenges and issues that come up. It’s absolutely critical to establish how commercially viable the product or service is and understand what business model and route to market would work best. These will enable you to establish whether the concept / idea is worth pursuing and what opportunities exist within the marketplace.
So if you are that person with an idea in your head or working within an organisation that is thinking of launching a new product at a very simplistic level you need to ask yourself the following:
- What’s the market size for my product & is it worth it?
- Does the business model I’m pursuing make sense? Why am I pursuing this particular one? Are there others that would make more sense?
- I think I know who my competitors are but could there be more out there? And importantly how is my product different or better than what’s there already?
- Who am I going to see this product to? Who is my target market & why? How many of these people are out there – where are they?
- How am I going to get the product into people’s hands? What’s my best and most profitable route to market?
- How much is it going to cost to make the product or get it landed for sale & what should I be pricing it at to make it worthwhile?
- How much will people be willing to pay for it? Is there price elasticity there?
- What would make most sense marketing and PR wise? Why am I going to pursue these particular marketing channels?
The answers to these questions are seldom inside the business or known by the entrepreneur and you may need to look externally. Typically using a blend of primary and secondary / desk research will answer these questions and validate your concept.
If you have the skillset internally to validate your concept, great, if you don’t get external help and needless to say we’d be more than happy to help you with it!