Catch Ideas Early: Identify Mega Trends

Should I take up this idea and start a business around this? How will I know whether this business idea is sustainable? Should I hire a Consultant to understand the nuances?

Well the answer to all this is: Believe in your capabilities and Identify a Mega Trend. Going by the history all successful entrepreneurs identified a trend and modeled their business with respect to the same. Now the question arises: If the key to success is Identifying a Mega Trend then why many businesses failed? Again the answer to this is mere identifying a mega trend does not guarantee that you will become a successful entrepreneur. The premises of the hypothesis lie in the fact that identifying a megatrend is a Stepping stone to success and not the milestone itself.

There are no prescribed formulae for a successful business but the starting point for the Algorithm is IDEA.  In its nascent stage an idea may be vague and hence you might be a bit shy to share the same with your peers but that’s an inflection point where many ideas die. In my opinion, once you have the idea, do extensive research on the same. There might be times when you are not able to relate your idea with the market. This is the time when you go “Social”. Take up the idea and discuss with your peers/friends whoever you think can lend his/her unbiased perspective to the same.

Think Global: In today’s world where every second an event breaks out, in a world where the West is reeling under the ramifications of its actions people might argue that Global perspective is not necessary. But I beg to differ. The moment you start working on an idea you should have a Global mindset.

Value Proposition: Any business has to offer a Value Proposition in order to make the product/service saleable. Here you need to understand the fact that your product/service should offer an incentive to your customer.

Once you have thought through the idea, developing a business model is the crucial juncture. As stated earlier, your business model should be aligned with the idea. At this juncture, you might be tempted to use a business model that has paid rich dividends for another business idea. Here you need to introspect and understand the fact that every business idea has a unique Value proposition, hence a business model cannot be scaled. It can be customized but unless you know the business model like the palm of your hand you should refrain from scaling it.

Small opportunities are often beginnings of great enterprises.

By Demosthenes

[ The article has been written by Manish Chadha. He is an MBA in Marketing from Great Lakes Institute of Management. Prior to MBA, he did his graduation in Mechanical Engineering and has 33 months of work experience with Accenture in different roles like Solution Architect, off-shore lead etc.]