Idea Development — How to know if your Business Idea will work?

If you’re reading this and haven’t started your business yet, I suspect you might have hundreds of ideas popping into your mind. Maybe you’ve been thinking about starting your business for several years but haven’t taken action yet.

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I’ve been there myself. My motivation for this post comes from my own experiences — years spent chasing business ideas where I’d think, “I found it! This is the one!” only to realize later that I couldn’t find any customers willing to pay for it.

I want to share some insights that I’ve gathered after reading several books, watching tutorials, taking business development courses, and more. These insights have helped me understand what I was missing when I first tried to start my business. Let’s start with the first and main step: Idea Selection and development.

Idea Development

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The goal of idea development is to figure out how do we actually freakin start? Ideas can often be vague and fleeting, making it challenging to pin down where to begin. This is where I suggest my first tip:

“Write your Ideas Down”

Your idea might be a billion-dollar one, but chances are you’ll probably forget about it in a few days or weeks unless you write it down. The number one thing that holds us back from pursuing our ideas is not knowing the steps, intricacies, problems, solutions, and viability of our idea. We often start by thinking about how we’ll monetize it. But here’s the thing: Don’t think about monetization first. Focus on solving the user problem!

One framework you can leverage for your idea selection is known as the PSM framework: Problem, Solution, and Monetization. The essence of this framework is to write down every bit of your business idea, considering both B2B (business-to-business) and B2C (business-to-consumer) perspectives if applicable. By breaking down your idea into these components, you’ll gain a clearer understanding of its potential and the steps needed to bring it to life.

The PSM Framework

1. Problem: Identify the specific problem your idea aims to solve. This should be a clear and concise statement of the issue that your potential customers face.
2. Solution: Define the solution your idea offers. How will it address the problem? What makes your solution unique or better than existing ones?
3. Monetization: Lastly, think about how you can monetize your solution. What will people pay for? What are the different revenue streams you can explore?

By documenting these aspects, you create a roadmap that guides your development process and ensures you’re building something valuable.

Practical Example

Let me share an example with you. Suppose I’m planning to launch a stationery eCommerce business that’ll offer top-quality stationery products like Papier and MUJI. I’ll start by defining the idea in brief:

Definition

I want to start an eCommerce platform for artists, students, book nerds, stationery lovers, and freelancers. This platform will offer branded stationery that is aesthetic, minimal, functional, and unique.

Problems

• Minimal and aesthetic stationery isn’t widely available.
• Prices are often too high on platforms offering good stationery.
• Stationery products are rarely available in cohesive themes.
• Artists struggle to find high-quality items for their craft.

Solution

• A brand that offers affordable, high-quality stationery items.
• A curated selection of high-quality art supplies.
• Original books with premium paper quality.
• Thematic stationery collections to provide cohesive sets.

Monetization

• Direct sales on the eCommerce platform
• Subscription service for books
• YouTube Videos/Blog monetised via Adsense/Affiliate links
• Premium pricing for custom stationery supplies for offices and personalized cards

It’s worth pointing out that your first idea is often the most uncertain and probably immature. However, writing it down gives you a crucial starting point. The more time you spend refining and improving your idea, the better it will become.

Conclusion

This is just a glimpse of how I approach idea development, and you can follow the same approach for your idea. Also, there’s an amazing book by AppSumo founder Noah Kagan i.e., MILLION DOLLAR WEEKEND where the author dives deeper into Idea Development and its validation—highly recommended.

You can get your copy via Amazon HERE (Affiliate link: I may earn a commission at no extra cost to you.)

With that said, I hope you enjoyed my article. In the next post, we will work on validating this idea and might potentially launch it. I’ll be sharing all the successes and challenges with you. So you can learn along the way.

Lastly, you can follow my profile and give this post a clap or two. This will really help boost the algorithm. Peace ✌