So you have a great idea, what’s next? Here’s how to move your idea forward.
Little ideas, that tickled and nagged, and refused to go away… should never be ignored, for in them lie the seeds of destiny.~ from the movie “Babe, the Pig”
“That’s it!”
You’re showering, soaping your body, but your mind is elsewhere, chewing on an idea you can’t seem to let go of. It could be the next big thing. 
Your road to a better life.
Whatever it is, it’s one helluva good idea. What’s the next step?
I get this question often, so I thought I’d share some of the things I do when all I begin with is an idea.
Like most people, I’ve had plenty of ideas. Some fizzled away. Some led to larger things.
I’m hoping my idea for Bunch Out would lead to something huge (time will tell).
For all the ideas which haunt me, and never let go, here are the next 3 steps I find most useful in moving them forward.
(These steps are discussed in the context of an internet business, service, product, or website)
1. Set up an idea bucket
When I’m really excited, I try and write down as much as I can, and not worry about structure, choosing the right words, or self-censorship. I just dump it all in an idea bucket. Use a Word document, a piece of paper, or your thigh, whatever.
Get it all in there, quickly!
2. Pick out “Excitement Points”
“Excitement Points” are specific things about your idea which excites
- A user of your website/service/product
- Yourself as an idea driver/ entrepreneur
- A potential funder, or any other stakeholder
You really want to do this because it’s the very same excitement points you want to refer to when
- You forget why you were so excited in the first place, and want to give yourself added motivation
- When you want to motivate your team, or inspire the people who might be working with you on your idea
- When you want to “sell” a potential user of your product/ service, write convincing copy etc.
Warning: At this point, do not “get skeptical” on yourself. Do not play “devil’s advocate”. That’s not useful in the ideation stage. The biggest tragedy is to kill your idea before you let it blossom to its fullest!
Having said that, use these questions to help get some really big excitement points out of your idea!
- What’s in it for you, personally, when your idea becomes a reality?
- Why does your idea need to exist?
- Once your idea takes off, what are the possibilities for it to grow even larger?
3. Develop the elevator pitch
It’s usually quite easy to get emotional and tell long stories about your idea and its potential. That’s cool.
Now, try encapsulating it in a 30 second pitch!
The goal is to have a succinct way of infecting others with your idea. The way I prefer to do an elevator pitch is start with
- TITLE: Working name for your business idea…
- AUDIENCE: Who is it built for?
- FUNCTION: What does it do for them?
- HOW: How does the business do all of the above?
You can use the above, to form a sentence…. “TITLE” will help “AUDIENCE” “FUNCTION” by “HOW”.
Eg. SlapMyFace will help someone who wants to get slapped in the face find someone to slap him/her in the face by promoting him/her via an profile online, embeddable in blogs, Facebook, Friendster etc..
The sentence above is on it’s way to an elevator pitch… to complete it? Add a sentence about how your idea makes money, and you’ve got your elevator pitch.
That’s just a starting point on how you might want to excite someone in 30 seconds. Feel free to get creative, there really isn’t one perfect way to go about it.
As long as you can communicate your idea succinctly, and ideally excite someone to know more, you’ve got step 3 nailed.
What’s Next?
As quickly as possible, get a “prototype of the idea” out. Even if it’s just a sketch on paper. Start visualizing and refining it as much as possible… get it to a “usable” state, then send it out to relevant users for “proof of concept”.
I will share some resources and tools on these next steps in a separate post. Would that be a good idea? ;p
For today, do let me know if this article was useful, and share some links, or ideas to build upon it. Happy idea generating!
Comments
8 Responses to “So you have a great idea, what’s next? Here’s how to move your idea forward.”
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Hi
This article is brilliant-1) It is Direct 2) To the Point 3) Simple 4) Quick Reading 5) Makes you think again 6) It Inspires you
I used to work for an energy institution called British Gas in Edinburgh-this is exactly they used to do. Well it was a paperless office and so we used the notepad on MX XP-but then they are very British in thier ways and not American so you always have a Peice of Paper and a Pencil handy!!!
wow thanks~!! appreciate your kind words vikram! thanks for sharing
hey khailee.
interesting insights. i will definitely tell my friends about this article. really cool.
i think spreading the word to younger people than us would definitely create an impact sooner or later. what’s good about the article is that it’s universal. it applies to anyone anywhere.
keep it up.
Hey bro, wonderful post. I like it. An extra thing you should add after carrying out the above is researching to see if someone else had the same idea and implemented.
This helps you learn from a person’s previous mistakes and can enable to tweak your idea further to make it even better.
*thumbs up
Thank you Khailee, THANK YOU!!!! *mwah* lub u for this article!
omg.. good work, brother
This is a well-written article and I agree with what Amir Ahmad has mentioned above
Gonna share this with the womenfolk now