General Business Framework for Noobs questions...help!

[Sevlow9]

Whats up fastlaners, i have some questions if anyone would be kind enough to answer

1) I have many ideas for a business, what questions can I ask myself to come to a final decision on the one I want to pursue? also any insights on where to find needs?

2) Now that I have settled on my business idea, how do i go about validating that idea as one that has the potential to succeed and that here is a need for it?

for example: a comparison website

what are the next logical steps?

a) google comparison sites in the niche i want to get in to, and assess the competition? how much competition is too much competition? what is the cut off point where you think "ok, this market is over saturated"?

b) decide how i can make my site better and provide more value?

3) as someone who doesn't have experience in creating websites, is it a case of basically googling how to create a comparison website or do i just pay someone to create it for me

a) should i learn html code so i can manage the site on my own

4. Now that i have a basic site, what are the best most effective ways of getting this site in front of my target market?

a) what are the best tools to advertise my business online?

b) how can i get my site to rank on the first page of google and other search engines?

so any advice on taking an idea from just an idea to an actual working business and the most critical steps in between, I'm not asking for you to do it all for me but give me a basic frame of what you have done in your business and i will do the rest, you can make this general if you like which could relate to most business's, that way then total noobs like me and others on this forum will have some sort of check list/guide/ framework so we can move forward.

thank you for your time

regards

 

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[Bamcis]

I suggest writing a business plan. Whether it be a hasty plan or detailed one, writing it out can help expose questions and answers for your business. I also find it useful as a sort of "validating tool" in seeing the logical and financial feasibility with your ideas.

 

[ZCP]

What value do you provide?

If you cannot answer that question distinctly with something particular, go no further until you can.

Open up excel or a similar spreadsheet. Start listing items you need and estimating costs. Add links / to do lists for items as they come up. List out all your estimated costs for an item and all your fixed costs to get started. How much capital do you need? Then, based on the value you listed above, what would someone be willing to pay for that value. How often would they or someone new be willing to pay for that value? How many would you expect to sell in the first year. Are you profitable? If you increase your costs 10% and decrease your sales price 10%, are you still profitable?

If you cannot answer those questions, research and learn until you can.

If you have no idea if it will sell, come up with an MVP and decide if you are willing to invest that much to vet your idea. If you can, pull the trigger and learn.

Now go 'do' for 30 days and come back and report your results.

 

[The-J]

Have you read the book?

 

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[Draven Grey]

First, definitely read the book, The Millionaire Fastlane . Then, the business plan, cost analysis, assessing value straight from the people you will be serving, etc, etc, can all be done with a Lean Canvas and the preceding interviews to validate it and get your first customers. Either look up the Lean Canvas, or the book Business Model Generation. A Canvas only takes about 20 minutes to fill out, which gives you a complete business plan on one page. Then start interviewing your ideal clients about it, and let them tell you how to adjust your ideas from the canvas about needs, problems, solutions, etc; even in their own words (which are great for the marketing side of things).

 

[AndrewNC]

what questions can I ask myself to come to a final decision on the one I want to pursue

Business ideas don't exist.

Businesses solve problems/provide entertainment for others.

What can you do to get feedback from your target audience to see if this is something they would pay for?

 

[Sevlow9]

What value do you provide?

If you cannot answer that question distinctly with something particular, go no further until you can.

Open up excel or a similar spreadsheet. Start listing items you need and estimating costs. Add links / to do lists for items as they come up. List out all your estimated costs for an item and all your fixed costs to get started. How much capital do you need? Then, based on the value you listed above, what would someone be willing to pay for that value. How often would they or someone new be willing to pay for that value? How many would you expect to sell in the first year. Are you profitable? If you increase your costs 10% and decrease your sales price 10%, are you still profitable?

If you cannot answer those questions, research and learn until you can.

If you have no idea if it will sell, come up with an MVP and decide if you are willing to invest that much to vet your idea. If you can, pull the trigger and learn.

Now go 'do' for 30 days and come back and report your results.

great, some actionable steps i can get started on, thanks! as you can tell i am totally new to this so this will help ten fold

 

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[Sevlow9]

Business ideas don't exist.

Businesses solve problems/provide entertainment for others.

What can you do to get feedback from your target audience to see if this is something they would pay for?

would you recommend joining relevant forums with my target audience? facebook groups etc what else can i do?

 

[Sevlow9]

First, definitely read the book, The Millionaire Fastlane . Then, the business plan, cost analysis, assessing value straight from the people you will be serving, etc, etc, can all be done with a Lean Canvas and the preceding interviews to validate it and get your first customers. Either look up the Lean Canvas, or the book Business Model Generation. A Canvas only takes about 20 minutes to fill out, which gives you a complete business plan on one page. Then start interviewing your ideal clients about it, and let them tell you how to adjust your ideas from the canvas about needs, problems, solutions, etc; even in their own words (which are great for the marketing side of things).

awesome! i just need a bit of guidance to get the wheels rolling then i can grab the steering wheel from there! i will look up both of those resources you have mentioned, thanks for the help. So you could possible say the first most critical step is to gain feedback from your target market to see if they need or want your business. Would you advise some how getting in contact with a particular market and just asking what their biggest problem or pain point is in that niche which i could build a business around. What i'm basically asking is whats is the best way that you find needs and pain points. cheers.

 

[Raoul Duke]

http://foreverjobless.com/ev-millionaires-math/

http://www.appsumo.com/validate-idea/

https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984358102/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

 

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[AndrewNC]

would you recommend joining relevant forums with my target audience? facebook groups etc what else can i do?

I don't know who your audience is and where they hang out.

Are they a bunch of oil workers who never go online?
Do they ride motorcycles and hang out at bars?
Do they visit online forums?

Find out where your audience is, and speak to them (in person preferably).

Oh, and another thing - might not apply to you, but a mistake I made when I was in your position with business. I have two ears and one mouth for a reason. I used to speak my mind and 'defend' my idea when they didn't agree.

They know what they will pay money for and you don't - don't impose your ideas on them, as much as you listen to what they want.

If I listened to this advice years ago, it would have saved me 18 months of trying.

 

[Alxander]

Very simplified, ask yourself this;

What can I give?
How can I give? (distribution and marketing)
Who can I give? (potential clients)
How can I receive?

I have a lot of ideas and you only have to sometimes ask yourself that extra question to see if it would work or not, after that you can go much deeper.

 

[Sevlow9]

I don't know who your audience is and where they hang out.

Are they a bunch of oil workers who never go online?
Do they ride motorcycles and hang out at bars?
Do they visit online forums?

Find out where your audience is, and speak to them (in person preferably).

Oh, and another thing - might not apply to you, but a mistake I made when I was in your position with business. I have two ears and one mouth for a reason. I used to speak my mind and 'defend' my idea when they didn't agree.

They know what they will pay money for and you don't - don't impose your ideas on them, as much as you listen to what they want.

If I listened to this advice years ago, it would have saved me 18 months of trying.

got it!, get in front of my target audience however that may be(online or in person) to validate my idea is the first step. I don't really have an ego like that, i'm open to changing my ideas based on what my target audience would want, the biggest take away i got from the TMF is that providing value is the most important component in a successful business and not my "passion". Thanks!

 

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[Sevlow9]

what about if your business idea could benefit a broad spectrum of people on a larger scale rather than a particular niche, how could i conduct market research to validate that idea? for example if i was inventing a new type of fitness equipment then i would conduct market research at gyms, fitness centers, fitness forums. But if its an idea that could benefit a large amount of the population i wouldn't have a specific place to go to if that makes sense

 

[OldFaithful]

Wow there is some mighty good advice being posted in this forum, and might quick too I might add.

Have you read the book?

+1

Business ideas don't exist.

Interesting. Do businesses exist?
Not exactly on topic, but a fun question nonetheless.

Back to topic: The idea is that people "solve problems" and/or "provide products" for people to consume. We can decide to be a producer of solutions/products and just changing the mindset from consumer to producer is a great start.

 

[AndrewNC]

Do businesses exist?

I phrase 'business ideas don't exist' because it helps people understand to give the market what it wants. MJ covered that in his book, but I ignored those lessons and tried to impose my ideas on others. So busienss ideas do exist...but not in the way most people see them.

I guess that means businesses exist too.

 

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[OldFaithful]

I phrase 'business ideas don't exist' because it helps people understand to give the market what it wants.......So busienss ideas do exist...but not in the way most people see them.

You are correct, especially in the context of this forum and the content of the book. I can appreciate the shift in focus from the idea in one's mind to the need in the marketplace.

On the other hand, do businesses/corporations/governments actually exist? In each of these examples, isn't it people that exist and people that make decisions and people that are affected by those decisions/actions? The legal or contractual arrangement seems to be merely a facade, for any of many reasons. Aren't we all just people, working together, trying individually to make the most of our interactions with other people? Thinking this way leads me away from the less scrupulous methods and towards producing value for others.

 

[Shrewedmoney15]

First question. Have you already discovered if you have a competitive advantage? For example can you be the low cost leader? Do you offer something in your market that is disruptive or innovative? Or do you plan to focus on a specific under served portion of the market?

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