Category Archives: Ideation

The process of coming up with a valid business idea

Blog, Experiential Learning, Ideation, Resources, Skills Development

The process of discovering an idea and making it an opportunity

I have had many business ideas over the years and the vast majority of them I have not acted upon, for various reasons. Sometimes it’s time, money or the fact I don’t have the core skills or resources to make this work. In this blog we are exploring this cognitive process which everyone undertakes to investigate the opportunity. The aim is to support you in using this best practice when discovering a business opportunity.

The process of discovering a business idea is a varied and complex one and may occur over several years or during a split second. However, we can summarise some of the key mechanisms which occur during this mental process. An idea is just that and needs to be added to and then validated to make an opportunity.

The nascent entrepreneur enters the process with three sets of characteristics which can be split into Sociological factors, Demographic factors and Psychological factors. The Demographic factors are Age, Gender, Education level, Marital Status, Occupation, Population Growth, and Migration. These Sociological factors are Religion, Family, Network, Income & Wealth , Transport, Social Mobility, and Household Composition. The Psychological factors are Need for achievement, Need for autonomy, Internal Locus of control, Risk-taking propensity, Entrepreneurial Self Efficacy, Creative & innovative, and Motivational.

These characteristics form the basis from which the nascent entrepreneur sees, finds and more importantly validates the business idea and the potential opportunity. This prior knowledge and competency in entrepreneurship sets the nascent entrepreneurs on the path. The trigger for this to occur varies, from long term intention to a point in time when either the need or the opportunity presents itself. The entrepreneur will bring forth a range of capitals which will be used to resource the venture these we term the Startup Entrepreneur Capitals. These can be brought down to Financial, Intellectual, Experiential (Human), Social, Cultural, Spiritual, and Material. These set what resources could be used in the first instances to start the business. After the business is started you can find new resources.

Once the basis for the idea is found, the next stage is to analyse if it is exploitable? On a cognitive level, the nascent entrepreneur needs to understand the probability of success based on the personal investment available of resources to facilitate enough time to get the venture to profit. Then we need to understand will the venture be profitable enough to compensate for their opportunity costs.

Once the nascent entrepreneur has validated an opportunity for them, they then need to scope it to understand the trajectory of the business and the potential scale. The required scale of a business is dependent on the industry and market and the ability of the team to manage it.

The business then requires to be designed by the nascent entrepreneur. However, with no or little experience in designing a business, they need to connect the opportunity with their vision, the businesses mission and set the strategy and objectives to meet.

Once they have thought this out they can start modelling the business, through tools like the business model canvas and potentially developing a business plan.

Blog, Data Analytics, Ideation, Lean Startup Methodology

Business models and why they are important

Business Modelling
One of the critical parts of starting a business is the stage right after coming up with the idea, ideation. This next stage, which I call “Modelling” within the business startup process is the most critical. 
The first part of it is about self reflection and understanding who we are and what we want this from venture. As most startup have limited resources, the nascent entrepreneur needs to look into their strengths and understand how these can be used for advantage and also design a business which does not allow their weakness to dominate the outcome of the venture.


This is normally done by thinking about the available money, people and time, in relationship with the desired outcomes or strategy of the venture. This we thing about as a business model. 
The definition of a business model is: 


A business model is a recipe of how a venture creates, delivers, and captures value from a customer. 


The right business model reduces the risks associated to a manageable level which enables the nascent entrepreneurs to make the business fly.


The format for the business model must reflect its role in the strategic planning process. A business model is a tool that serves a specific purpose within this startup planning process.  


The traditional Business Model Canvas one created by Alexander Osterwalder and referred to as the Business Model Canvas is not enough to develop the nascent entrepreneurs business model and therefore I have developed the Startup Business Model Canvas.
The role of the canvas is one of facilitating input, understanding of cause/effect linkage, and commitment to the ultimate strategic choices and the best way to implement this is through a visual model. 

Blog, Ideation, Lean Startup Methodology, Legal and Regulatory Knowledge

What is ideation, the business idea generation process?

 Ideation is the systematic process of generating design ideas, developing idea variations, and identifying good ideas that point to promising venture creation.

Every business idea has to start somewhere

The Ideation process lies at the centre of the business startup process where entrepreneurs invest time in design thinking and connecting data sources to opportunities for innovation.Startup Ideation is about generating, developing, and evaluating ideas for launching innovative and viable new ventures.

The intention of Startup Ideation is to provide entrepreneurs with the chance to identify possible opportunities for their entrepreneurial pursuit. There are two types of entrepreneurs – those that have a myriad of business ideas but can’t pick one to run with and those that are aspiring entrepreneurs that are bright and enthusiastic but can’t come up with an idea. Startup Ideation will help aspiring entrepreneurs with idea generation.The ideation process can be split into four phases:

Ideation is a process

Ideation is the systematic process of generating design ideas, developing idea variations, and identifying good ideas that point to promising venture creation. The Ideation process lies at the centre of the business startup process where entrepreneurs invest time in design thinking and connecting data sources to opportunities for innovation.Startup Ideation is about generating, developing, and evaluating ideas for launching innovative and viable new ventures.

The intention of Startup Ideation is to provide entrepreneurs with the chance to identify possible opportunities for their entrepreneurial pursuit. There are two types of entrepreneurs – those that have a myriad of business ideas but can’t pick one to run with and those that are aspiring entrepreneurs that are bright and enthusiastic but can’t come up with an idea. Startup Ideation will help aspiring entrepreneurs with idea generation.The ideation process can be split into four phases:

Four Step Process for Ideation

  1. Opportunity Recognition
    1. Clarify the problem: What do we know? What don’t we know? What information is needed to help solve the problem? 
    2. Define the problem: What are our needs? 
    3. Force field analysis: Use this tool to help make decisions. 
    4. Problem Statement: Can we develop one sentence which defines the problem? 
    5. Adjacent Solutions: Who else have solve this problem or a problem like this? What other systems that attempt to solve our problem or inspire us with their design or functionality?
  2. Idea Generation: 
  3. Idea Selection and Evaluation: Picking the best ideas starts much before the beginning of the ideation process. It is essential that you fix the criteria by which the ideas are to be assessed, who would be responsible for evaluating the ideas, and how the top ideas would be given to the concerned internal teams for further assessment or execution. A proper selection process begins with the use of tags or labels to arrange the ideas into meaningful clusters.
  4. Idea Communication: The success of implementation is dependent on an organization’s ability to choose the top ideas and take action based on them. It also depends on the organization having appropriate workflows in place so that the right groups take part at the appropriate time in the three steps of the ideation process.
Blog, Ideation

Ideas Evaluation for Entrepreneurs

One of the best skills to have as an entrepreneur is being able to evaluate ideas. Ideas are cheap and don’t actually create any value, it’s the person that acts on an idea who starts to create value. I often meet people who want to protect their idea more than act on them. However, acting on any idea doesn’t provide a great recipe for success. You have to act on the good ones which you have the skills to make into a successful enterprise.

The first principle is to write your ideas down, keeping a chronological log of your ideas. This allows you to reflect on them, review them and refine them into something you can start to see true value. Idea’s have their time and place. So today, you may not have the time, money or ability to act on your idea, however in time things change and you may be well placed to make this idea a reality.

The ability to evaluate your ideas is split into personal skills, knowledge and aptitude on the one hand and logical, systematic evaluation on the other.

Your personal skills are constantly changing and developing, this allows you to develop as an entrepreneur and gain new valuable skills. Practical hands-on skills are one of the most value assets an entrepreneur has. The second most valuable skills are those of their team, the entrepreneurs team are core to their success and more importantly possible failure.

Knowledge for an entrepreneur is normally based around an industry sector and this asset is the foundation to building successful businesses. Without it you have a very loose idea of what is going on around you, you have no ability to influence or act on daily news stories or gossip. All successful entrepreneurs spend a great amount of time developing this knowledge to a point whereby they can plan for guaranteed success within their sector.

Many entrepreneurs stay within an industry. Many only look at businesses with a certain business model. Many take businesses they can run within a certain region. Everyone have a certain aptitude for business and only these business ideas will start to spark within the entrepreneur.

At this stage in an idea evaluation you have a series of soft skills, hard knowledge and a gut feeling. These three determine if the entrepreneur can add, see and benefit from the value of the idea.

The next is putting some form of logical plan around it which can executed to deliver on some form of business plan. The ability to look at an idea and develop a quick business plan and gut feeling on the returns allows the entrepreneur to see the merits of the idea. Who is the customer, how much are they willing to pay, what are the costs, liabilities and issues in delivery. How many staff, where and what type of people. What type of management team would be required. How much investment, money, time and skills will be required from me?