Why not launch your business today?

Jean-Paul Baka - Sunday, June 18, 2017

It is accepted that the most wealthy part of the world is the cemetery. Why? Because a lot of ideas are in the grave. Great inventions, great startups, great discoveries which must be done are gone to the grave. One of the reasons is that a lot of them did not get accomplished because the ideas owners refuse to dare to start. Some did not have a starting money or those ideas owners are afraid that people will not buy to their ideas.

If you have an idea and wanted to see it as reality in your life before leaving this earth. In the line coming, I will help you with basic ideas that will allow you to launch your startup from today.

You have an idea, a project that tortures you day and night. You would like to start your startup. The good news is that you do not have to leave your job or borrow from any financial institution. You do not need to mobilize all your savings and family ones

Other good news is that you can start your project today.

You have:

-- an idea;

-- a market (you know to whom you will sell your product or service);

-- identified the problem (or need) to which your idea answers.

With all those ready, why not use the MVP(Minimum Viable Product)

You will be able to test your idea, today, by realizing a prototype (yes even for a service). The prototype is called MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The smallest version of your idea. That's all, you do not need anything more.

With MVP, very quickly, you will be able to determine if there is or not a market for your idea. Concretely, if there are customers willing to pay for your idea.

Let me give you the 6 ways to test your startup idea via the Minimum Viable Product (MVP)

The biggest cause of failure of startups is very simple (if we speak figures only): it is the fact DO NOT START. It is crazy the number of people who do not give a chance to their ideas, who self-censor ... And it is actually a shame.

There are lots of reasons for that, but the main one is to believe that it will be too complicated to take the first steps. The gap seems to be too important in the eyes of the entrepreneur between his current situation and entrepreneurial status.

Yet there is a good way, even when already in position, to test his idea: it is a question of starting to embark on the creation. Not in any way of course, by realizing an MVP: a Minimum Viable Product, I mean the smallest possible product that helps me prove that there is a market. Exit, therefore, business plans, market research, excels with extending formulas.

Build a Minimum Viable Product requires being smart to find tips to recover a lot of information without spending much time thinking. And to "make believe" that your product or service is already running. Our goal here is not to sell the entire service, nor to function as a real business, but to ensure that some people are becoming clients.

And for that, there are some tricks to have, which do not require too much money or much time. Doing so it helps at least to give a chance to a business idea.

-- Have a landing page and a registration form. Rather than fully developing your web service, just make the home page of a site. There are a lot of tools (for example, Unbounce, or Strikingly) that allow you to do it without any development skills (you will still have to learn about the basic rules of web ergonomics, eh!). Explain your service as if it already existed, give details, talk the customers' speeches, in "what benefits for them" mode. And of course put a registration form allowing you to retrieve emails. Then inform everyone that the site is not yet launched, but that you would like to have their opinion during a short telephone conversation ...

-- Play the concierge by "handmade". This works well in case your site is supposed to do something to automate ... but which development would cost too much. You retrieve the person's contacts and you do everything by hand yourself (search for info, matching, shopping, ... it works for almost everything). At least you will understand the business steps and "bottlenecks" points ... as well as the real needs of customers.

Dispersing pubs on many ad platforms. If your product sticks to a particular research or need, you may be able to buy a few ads. If no one clicks on it, it may be that the need does not exist. Then try to recover a contact to refine their need by phone or mail.

-- Make a demo video. Make a short explanatory video of your service. Show it live to potential prospects, or spread it on a page with a small form. And make several versions to test what works (or not)!

Testing "in a street or neighborhood". If you offer services or a particular product. You have the opportunity to make people believe that your business really exists, on a street or neighborhood scale. Print flyers and distribute them systematically in mailboxes and magazines, go to companies, possibly hand-delivered or on windshields ... with a contact number. If after a few days no one has called you it may be that there is no need or that you are in the wrong neighborhood.

Frankenstein-style. Do you have a website idea, but no skill or graphics? Why not use Frankenstein style. Make screenshots of the sites you find good. Get bits and pieces of what works, and "assemble", end-to-end, the site of your dreams. All you have to do is go out on the street with an iPad or Samsung tablet. And show the images by emulating a navigation route. Let people react, you will learn a lot.

Is it an object? Make a 3D-Printing version! Do you have a small or bigger idea? It is now easy enough to get a first version, almost real ... do not hesitate, to make people react by putting something in their hands is often the best way to proceed!