Techpreneurship: Is My Idea Any Good?

Jeff Amerine

Techpreneurship, with Jeff Amerine

(Jeff Amerine is an IA advisor, entrepreneurship educator, and officer with the University of Arkansas Technology Licensing Office. Each Thursday, his Techpreneurship blog will appear in INOV8. Drop him a line in comments.)

Techpreneurs, especially young ones, are  idea engines.  The ideas flow forth at a head-spinning pace. Young, or young-at-heart, Techpreneurs, rejoice if you are living in this stage.  It doesn’t get any better than this from an intellectual standpoint.

This joyful period of enlightenment continues until the nay-saying “bozos” (Guy Kawasaki’s technical term for autonomic realists) bent on progress prevention or rationalization beat all signs of creativity out of you.  Techpreneurs, fight the relentless onslaught of the mindless creativity-smashers at every turn.  You have your whole life to become a tool of the system, don’t let the “bozos” ruin your personal age of enlightenment!

Whew, where is Adam West when you need him??

Anyway, with the understanding this highly creative period won’t last forever, Techpreneurs need to seize the moment.  Some structure and a process of idea validation have to be used, or else all of that creative thrust never finds a useful vector, i.e. a true path to make meaning and hopefully money at some point.

So, what to do?  First, here are my thoughts on a possible process:

1. Write down every business/product/service idea you have.  Do it when the idea is fresh, and when that light-bulb moment occurs.

2. Ask yourself the most fundamental question — does my idea solve a problem, or does it satisfy a want or need?  If the answer is no, keep the idea for later reference when the world may catch up to the idea, but definitely move on to the next idea!

3. Would anybody pay for it, and if so, for how many and at what price? Or would a ton of people use it for free?  There is value in a “yes” answer for either of these.

4.  Is the idea truly unique or is it just a “me too”?  As a startup techpreneur, if you expect to out-execute existing, established companies with virtually identical products or services, plan on much pain and suffering.  Really focus on the truly novel ideas.

5.  How much money and time will it take to commercialize the idea?  You may not know at the early stages; just realize the more money and time it takes, the more novel the idea or breakthrough has to be.

6.  Ask yourself, ”Am I excited enough that I will make the real sacrifices necessary to create a business around this idea?”

7. Prioritize your ideas based on your answers to questions 2-6, and find people or groups with varied expertise that will give you objective, unvarnished views on the value of your ideas (some of these may be “bozos”, but “bozos” can play a useful role in validation).  Be careful with this one. You may want to get confidentiality agreements in place before you expose your ideas.

The genesis for this topic comes courtesy of  Brad Henry at AEDC — thanks, Brad!  He ran across Carla Young, a blogger for Momeo Magazine, who had some very interesting suggestions for idea validation.  I especially like her suggestion of using the “wisdom of the crowd” in the blogosphere and via social networks to test your ideas.  Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter can all be used as free focus groups.  There really is a ton of expertise out there.

Check out Carla’s thoughts:

http://www.momeomagazine.com/the-big-idea-file-proof-of-concept-how-to-test-your-big-idea/

Once you’ve done the hard yards, or maybe miles, to answer these questions, the fun really begins — business planning.  If you’ve done these first steps of idea validation well, you’ll have many of the weapons you need to fend off the nay-saying legions of “bozos” who will no doubt stand in your way.

Since I haven’t had a creative idea in about 10 years now, I’d really be interested in hearing from those of you still enjoying the age of techpreneurship enlightenment…

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