Page 204 - DNBI_A01.QXD

1815 : STEP THREE – EVALUATING AND SELECTING IDEAS

business-focused criterion 2: practical feasibility

A blindingly simple question against which to screen possible ideas
simply asks: ‘Is this idea deliverable?’ We saw in Chapter 3 how the
bootleg team at Iridium failed to ask this basic question and overlooked
the ‘show-stopping’ fact that political economics would prevent
numerous national governments granting the licences needed by
Iridium actually to operate its technically preferred system.

critical success factors A thorough exercise of challenging whether
you can translate the seemingly good idea into practice will often
highlight the handful of factors which are critical to the success of the
venture and will provide some overall indication of the ease with
which your business idea could be implemented.

Sometimes the critical success factors are so extreme that they represent
a ‘fatal flaw’ in the business idea. easyCinema’s initial inability to
secure major first-release films came perilously close to this category,
for example. Sometimes you will be able to use your creativity to
generate options to overcome them, like Thomas Edison preferring the
low cost and guaranteed availability of carbonised bamboo for the lamp
filament over the technically superior but commercially risky platinum.
At other times, you will say to yourself that a business idea is workable
provided that this issue is resolved. For both the New Covent Garden
Soup Company and for Cobra beer, for example, extended shelf-life
represented this critical success factor.

business-focused criterion 3: ability to protect the
idea A further element against which to evaluate business ideas is

your ability to protect the idea. Is the idea capable of legal protection,
through patents, registered design or copyright?

In order to protect the value in the New Covent Garden Soup Company,
for example, Andrew Palmer filed an application to patent the novel
cooking process which radically extended the shelf-life of a product
made exclusively from natural ingredients. In contrast, Karan Bilimoria
protected the Cobra brand name rather than the brewing recipe.

protection other than the law Do other methods exist to protect
your idea?

As we saw in Chapter 2, Phil Knight and Bill Bowerman were so
successful in importing their running shoes from a distributor in the Far
East that the distributor decided to benefit from the ‘free’ market