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)

Self Employment Market Research

I nearly made a grave mistake 2 weeks back, on my route to self employment - not doing market research. Some of you might be aware that I'm thinking of a premium cake business venture/idea. I was doing a lot of research on premises but neglected to find out what the market demand for premium cakes was in my area.

Luckily, one day, just by intuition, I walked into a deli and a cafe in my area and asked if the owners would like to sample my cakes and discuss the possibility of selling them in their shops. Boy, did I learn a lot about local demand and pricing from doing just this! This lead to me writing to some wholesalers and asking them for their wholesale price for comparison.

Anyway, what I've learnt here is my long experience of being employed has ill-prepared me with skills to go into self-employment without making lots of mistakes. The idea now is to anticipate my mistakes instead of actually doing it and then learning from it after.

Now I've started to talk to business owners whenever but something from a shop, asking them if business was still good in the recession, which one of their products was the most popular etc.

I think I'm concentrating less on the self-employment ideas aspect and putting more effort into the business building ideas at the moment, but will have to come back to self employment matters when I set up my own company in the next few weeks.

Knowing Your Target Market

Being self employed means having to look for your own clients so it is crucial to know your target market, unless you intend to sell a mass market product! I've been told repeatedly the first test of one's idea is to ask, "Who's going to pay for my product/service?" This will test the viability of my plan because the answer to the question will highlight the flaws that need fixing. For instance:

1) I don't have an answer, or have a very vague one, like "anyone passing by on the street and likes the look of my shop ". That means I don't know who I'm selling to and therefore there won't be a strategy to guide my business or build a customer base.

2) If my answer shows that my market is extremely small, so small it's impossible to balance it with the investment I've put into the business, again, it's a flaw. Targeting a niche market when there is already plenty of competition, or my business expense is so high that the numbers don't stack up means my business won't survive.

So whether you are planning to sell your products/services to couples intending to get married in a foreign country, mothers with young toddlers or general DIY enthusiasts, knowing your market is key and research on numbers is the first thing to do.

I used to think people are behave just like me towards products and services, and will only be interested in things I'm interested in and spend money in a similar way. I've since realised almost nobody's spending pattern is like mine! I'm a minority in terms of how I use my disposable income. (For instance I don't normally buy alcohol, don't own a car, don't order takeaway, haven't got my own place nor a mortgage etc.) To find and understand the market I want to target, I can't count on personal opinion and have to try getting into the mindsets of other people, in other words, understand market psychology.

For example, I have an idea to market my services to people who are already aware of their impact on the environment and want to do their bit. So who is my target market? Is the market big enough? I don't know yet because I haven't got data on environmental consumerism, but I know it changes with the times. The recession has probably weakened resolve to put environmental concerns first in most peoples minds. Will I target the London market or the entire country, and what's the cost of going nationwide?

At this point all I have are questions and no real answers, still uncertain about viability and execution. It's as if I want to know that the plan will be a sure-fire success before I invest money and time into it. Ridiculous, but I admit that's what I've noticed myself doing! I've been told by people I'm over-thinking it and should just get on with doing it and learn as I go along. I hope by my next post, I've overcome my extreme risk-adverseness. Off now to the online casino now for a game of roulette...