Many people feel that any idea, whether to launch an app, transform, o create a digital platform, has the potential to succeed. The reality is that few make it to fruition.

What happens between the birth of a business idea and its materialization? There are many steps, much work, a good dose of effort, and perseverance to not give up along the way. Of course, nothing can be done if there is no opportunity, to begin with, i.e., an unmet need or a product or service that can be improved.

Sometimes ideas come as a result of a detailed analysis of consumer needs, the market situation, a specific problem expressed by a group of users, or even a difficulty when trying to complete a task. On other occasions, they arise by inspiration or even by chance. Regardless, no idea will ever materialize if they do not go through a feasibility analysis. Is it possible to develop any idea and transform it into a concrete product?

Interesting, important, imminent

First of all, it is not always quick or easy to implement any idea. Many times, it can take years. The idea must be intellectually challenging: to keep the entrepreneur motivated, even if the deadlines are extended or the first attempts do not give the expected results. “The probability of success increases if the goal meets the three ‘i’s: interesting, important, imminent,” explains venture analyst Jeff Patterson, venture advisor and expert in the application of new technologies to scale or develop companies, along with his colleague Antony Brydon in the first episode of Beyond Alchemy, the Making Sense podcast.

Before the idea becomes a real business, a product that meets the market’s needs, it must go through at least two other stages: getting the necessary funds or resources to cover the entire development process, and the validation and testing stage.

To get funding, the idea must be clearly explained. “The simpler the entrepreneur can explain an idea, the easier it will be to convince others of its potential,” says Brydon. Therefore, a three-pronged approach is recommended. First, the “positioning statement” should detail the idea in one or two sentences, mentioning the audience and the pain point addressed. Secondly, the “product description” should be described in a few paragraphs. Thirdly, a complete business model should be defined on one page.

The importance of validation

Finally, validation and testing are critical steps. Intuition or that hunch that we have something great in our hands has no place here. It is essential to go through an iterative and fine-tuning process to ensure that we are heading in the right direction, that the acceptance of the output of our idea will be adequate and that the adoption of the tool we are creating to channel it will be reasonable.

There are no magic recipes or infallible formulas. Trying to transform an idea into a viable and successful product is a hard journey, often frustrating, but always exciting. When the process goes well, it has an immeasurable added value for the entrepreneur: the feeling of having improved the life of its users.

Are you interested in two experts in the field giving you more clues on transforming ideas into projects? Then don’t miss the first edition of our Beyond Alchemy podcast, in which Brydon and Patterson talk about The birth of an idea: https://beyondalchemy-podcast.makingsense.com/