How to make your idea remarkable - Doug Richard's School for Startups

I attended Doug Richard's School for Start Ups' seminar yesterday as a guest. (Doug is a household name in the UK for his appearances on a popular entrepreneur TV programme, Dragon's Den, on the BBC a few years back)

Doug's message - your idea, business model and execution should all be 'remarkable' for success. By this, your business has to have something people would talk about. Perhaps you offer the first session free, or you offer a better delivery service than others, or you give a long warranty etc. In short, "make it remarkable and you'll be in demand."

Now, with reference to self-employment, here's 3 practical ideas I've absorbed about the startup process:

1. Don't worry about long-term plans and where you'll be in 10-15 years. When starting out in self-employment, you won't be in a position to make long-term decisions because your circumstance will change and you'll probably evolve and end up on a different route. Don't worry that you cannot see where your self-employment idea will leave you in 10 year's time!

2. Concentrate on working within or supplying a well-defined niche market. Start self-employment catering to a small market you understand well because you have limited resources so will only be able to handle a smaller segment of your intended market in the short term. When you've established yourself in that niche, you can expand further.

3. Your fee or price is determined by how much people are willing to pay for it, not what your costs are. This is most relevant to self-employment ideas selling hand-made crafts and bespoke services because consumers have gotten used to competitively-priced, mass-produced goods from developing nations over the past years. Find out what you are offering is worth by talking to as many potential customers as possible.

The seminar delivers great value, whether you already have a self-employment idea or are still thinking of one. If you do have one, please do pose questions relating to your idea and if you don't, you'll probably accelerate your thinking process. Doug has practiced what he preaches by making the 8-hour seminar 'remarkable' itself. For readers in Britain who would like to attend, I've been told that typing PROMOCODE or PROMO CODE (please try a few variations because I haven't used it before) when paying will give you a discount. (In case you're wondering, I'm not taking, and have never received any commission to blog)