Page 130 - The Business Idea Factory: A World-Class System for Creating Successful Business Ideas

Implement ideas with little risk

Take it for granted that no matter how much you analyze an idea and how much feedback you get, it
is impossible to predict with 100% probability if it will become successful. Billions of dollars are lost
every year by companies who invest in ideas that sound great on paper but, once faced with the real
world, fail due to various reasons.

Great thinkers know, “Only the market can make the final decision of whether the idea is viable. The
best way to see if an idea is wo r th sig nificant investment o f time and mo ney is to implement it with
little risk.”

Imagine that you own an international chain of restaurants and want to introduce a new snack to the
menu. Introduce it first in a single restaurant or a single city. If the snack proves to be popular, invest
in intr o ducing it o n a lar g er scale; if no t, yo u haven’t lo st a lo t o f time and mo ney. By testing yo ur
ideas before implementing them on a large scale, you minimize the losses in case of failure.

At the international design firm IDEO the employees do frequent and quick prototyping for product
ideas. At Pixar, animators show their work in early stages to the entire animation crew. Test your
ideas o n a small scale and let unsuccessful o nes fail as so o n as po ssible to minimize yo ur expenses
and time loss. If the idea doesn’t fail at the test stage, invest more money and time into it because,
most likely, it is one of those ideas that will make your company highly successful.

Implement your best ideas with a small investment of time and money and let the market decide
which o f them will sur vive. Immediately discar d ideas that failed dur ing the test stag e and invest in
those that worked. This strategy will allow you to build a profitable business with minimum risk.

Failures are an essential part of the creative process and the greater the number of your ideas that
fail, the more will eventually succeed. The world’s most successful thinkers have more failures than
other people but they are small and affordable.