How to research and develop your business ideas

Developing your business idea into a viable product or service is a critical part of building a business especially in an unstable developing country like Nigeria. Thorough assessment and market research at an early stage will help you to establish whether there is a market for your product or service.

This guide will help you assess whether your idea can form the foundation for a successful business and put a process in place to monitor and measure its progress.
It also has tips on how to finance the development of your idea and how to protect it if other people get involved.

Finding and Developing Your Idea
A new idea is often the basis for starting up a business. Many entrepreneurs spot a gap in the market and start businesses that provide a product or service that fills it. Others come up with ways to improve an existing product.

Coming up with a new idea
If you want to start a business but don't yet have an idea to work with, there are many ways to go about identifying one. The following questions may help:
Do you have any particular skills that could form the basis of a new business? Are you aware of a gap in the market in the industry that you currently work in? Do you have a hobby that could be turned into a business?

Has there ever been a time when you needed a particular service or product that nobody else provides? If you needed it, there is a good chance that other people will too.
Developing your idea
Once you've got a business idea, take time to refine it. This will help you to decide whether it could be the foundation of a successful business. I've encountered most ideas crumble for lack of refining.

There are various established methods of developing a business idea. You can: Conduct market research to discover whether your idea fills a gap in the market. Brainstorm your idea with friends, colleagues or staff, they can give different perspectives on the idea and may know if anyone else is doing the same thing. Think about whether your idea can take advantage of an opportunity created by new technologies, e.g. by trading online. Consider whether social trends will affect demand for your product, e.g. the increasing demand for organic food. Is there a market for my idea?

There are certain criteria you can use to establish this:
Does it satisfy or create a market need? Can you identify potential customers? Will it outlive passing trends or capitalise on the trend before it dies away? Is it unique, distinct or superior to those offered by competitors? What competition will it face - locally, nationally and globally?
Is the product safe for public use and does it comply with relevant regulations and legislation? Seek legal advice before proceeding. Market research can play an important role in answering many of these questions and increasing your chances of success.
Market research techniques can be basic or sophisticated. You could:
Canvass the opinion of friends and colleagues; Survey the public about whether they would use a product; Ask customers of competing products what improvements they would like to see;
Use focus groups to test your product or service;
Monitor your competitors' activities; Look at what has and hasn't worked in your industry or market niche
Hire a market research agency like NetworkNigeria, LSMB, or Gateway.
It is very important that you are as thorough in your market research as possible, as mistakes made at this stage of development could prove costly later on. Remember, the more information you have, the better you will be able to understand your potential customers, the marketplace and how your product fits in.

Plan the development of your idea
Try to identify the key stages or checkpoints in the development of your idea. Each checkpoint gives you a chance to evaluate the progress of your product or service and decide whether you need to make any changes.

Your checkpoints may include:
Designing - turning your idea into a product or service that can actually be sold
Prototyping - creating a useable example of your product or service, this can then be tested
Protecting - applying for a patent if you have invented a product or type of technology
Financing - raising the money you will need to get your business started.
Operations - setting up the structure of your business, e.g. finding a suitable location, hiring staff, etc
Marketing - working out how you will sell your product or service

Judge your progress
If the goals of any of your checkpoints are not met, you need to analyse why this is the case. Ask yourself whether your objectives were unreasonable. If so, you may need to revise your objectives. There are circumstances when you should reconsider your original idea. These include:

Developing a product or service that isn't commercially successful, Developing a product that is not technically viable, e.g. it cannot be manufactured or it doesn't meet performance requirements, Someone else releasing a product or service which is very similar or identical to yours

Finance the development of your idea
Securing adequate funding is one of the biggest obstacles many entrepreneurs face. Your funding needs may also change during the course of product development as it may take longer or cost more than you first expected.

Loans and overdrafts are the most common ways to raise money for a new business.
There are plenty of other ways to raise the finance you need, especially when setting up a new business. Grants and government schemes offering support to new businesses are widely available in Nigeria now especially the micro-finance banks.

There are also specific funding schemes for entrepreneurs under the age of 30. For further information about these funds and how to apply for them, send a mail to my box or visit the Network Nigeria website. My biggest advice is that you don't you don't start a new business with a loan except you have a solid company partnership.

Other sources of finance include:
Realising , or cashing in, the value of shares
Investment from business angels or venture capitalists
Family loans Joint ventures

Always try to overestimate how much money you might need. It's not worth investing your money and then running out before you have completed the development stage. You should look at the state of your funding at each development stage or checkpoint to help evaluate your finance options.

Business plan
Whenever you approach banks, potential investors, business partners or government departments for money you will need to show them a business plan. This should explain:
The goals of your business
What the purpose of the business is
Your marketing plan
What you intend to spend the invested or borrowed money on
How this will benefit both the business and the investor or lender
How you intend to repay any lenders
For a proficient business plan, consult a Business development expert

Sharing your ideas with others
At some stage you will probably wish to discuss your idea with a third party. This could be informally, such as seeking advice or encouragement from friends or family, or formally, by hiring a professional consultant, talking to your solicitor or accountant or forming a partnership or joint venture with another company.

Remember, once you put an idea into the public domain it can no longer be considered confidential or a trade secret. You should therefore take steps to protect your intellectual property. Before talking to third parties, it is a good idea to ask them to sign a non-disclosure agreement to prevent them from sharing the details of your confidential discussion with others. SEND me a mail if you need sample of a Non-disclosure agreement.
Intellectual property

Your intellectual property is what sets you apart from competitors. It could be your company brand, invention, design or creative work. Protecting your intellectual property makes strong business sense. Remember that you cannot protect an idea in its own right but you can protect the tangible work that you do to realise your idea.
There are several legal ways to do this: Trade marks restrict others from using your brand or logo, Copyright protects original literary, dramatic, musical and artistic works
Patents protect inventions

Design rights and registration protect a product's appearance, If you form a partnership or joint venture, draw up a contract defining who owns the idea and what the share of future profits will be. You must seek professional legal advice before taking any final decisions. A good place to start is by contacting a Business development expert.

Test the market
Product testing is important throughout the design process. While you are developing your product or service it's a good idea to keep testing the market to make sure you are still on the right track. You can do this by using:
Focus groups - ask small groups of your target customers what they want from your product or service.
Questionnaires - try to get as wide a sample as possible.
Prototypes - show an early version of your product to customers. You may find that your prototype will go through several stages of development as you refine your idea.
You may need to respond to suggestions from users by modifying the design. Don't be discouraged, as most successful entrepreneurs do not view this as a failure, but as a learning curve. It's a good idea to send your product to a large or very reputable organization. A positive testimonial will prove invaluable as you approach other customers.
You may want to consider testing even after your product goes on sale. Ongoing contact with customers can uncover both the shortcomings of your product and possible opportunities that you may have missed.

Once you have a final product, you can then set about building a brand. A brand includes everything that is visible to the customer, such as the product name , its packaging and its delivery. You also need to consider your pricing policy .You need to price all the materials, other inputs, machinery ,processes and administrative time realistically. You will need to research different suppliers and the cost of marketing and distribution. Then check on the price at which your competitors are selling to customers. You can determine the price of your product or service so that it is attractive to customers and you make a profit.

Finally
I started a business once and it crumbled because of my partners' incompetence and inconsistency. Selectively choose a partner to work with you on your business development ladder. Look for partners who can drive your vision not people you'll be dragging along.
When you make a mistake, don't look back at it long. Take the reason of the thing into your mind, and then look forward. Mistakes are lessons of wisdom. The past cannot be changed. The future is yet in your power, Obstacles don't have to stop you. If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up. Figure out how to climb it, go through it, or work around it. One of the greatest discoveries a man makes, one of his great surprises, is to find he can do what he was afraid he couldn't do. So don't be afraid of your big ideas, rather let it link you up with great achievers. Even if you get afraid, keep it secret. The secret of my influence has always been that it remained secret.

YOUTH CULTURE

If the distinguishing virtue of classical culture was a celebration of a sacred divine principle, while modern culture mourned the loss of the divine and post-modern culture celebrates its absence, then youth culture shows itself to be pre-eminent in trumpeting the supremacy of the individual - divorced not just from the divine, but from family, lineage, community and nation.
This inclination towards extreme individuality has always been latent within the human heart, but social conditions have not been particularly conducive for its expression - until now. Small families, long working hours for both parents and a soaring divorce rate cause children to be tied more loosely to their immediate families than ever before. Today, a child reared within an integrated nuclear family is exceptional not because he lives apart from his grandparents but because he knows both of his parents.
Yet even when children are brought up in a stable domestic situation, their bonds to family are not formed as closely as they once were. Families now sit side by side watching TV rather than face to face at the dinner table discussing the events of the day. Children and adults alike retreat to the solitary world of the personal computer, the iPod or the Game Boy rather than engaging in social intercourse with friends and family.
It is true that families have always engaged in solitary pastimes such as reading and painting, but the modern examples cited above are different in one very significant way. While reading traditionally involved delighting in the artistic creations of the older generation, modern electronic media allow children and youth to live in a socially isolated, individualized world which is entirely a creation of youth culture itself. Modern music, video games, chat rooms and text messaging are not connecting the recipient with the accrued wisdom and understanding of the nation’s cultural heritage. They are means of transmitting youth culture from one participant to another.
Technology allows youth to live continuously in a cultural environment entirely of their choosing, comprising nothing but adolescent outpourings. The cost of producing electronic music is such that any teenager with access to a personal computer can compose, produce and distribute his or her own music. Personal music devices allow youth to live the entire day not connecting with others but hemmed in by a wall of artificial sound.
Modern education exacerbates the alienation of youth from their elders. There was a time when education was the process of learning, absorbing, understanding and mastering the best that one’s culture had to offer. In our times of post-modern educational theories, all texts are equal, and children are now fed a diet of "relevant texts" which will "engage" them. That is to say, they study texts written in their own language. They no longer learn the rules of grammar and learn to speak like well-educated adults. They have their street slang and local idioms fed back to them and affirmed as appropriate means of communication. Children who aspire to master mature concepts are derided as nerds, while those who develop street creed are cool.
The youth of today are further divorced from the older generations by the absence of significant rites of passage in their lives. Wole Soyinka identified the rite of passage as an essential element of life through which the individual gains access to membership of a community. He noted that the rite of passage usually involved an initial separation from one’s previous clique, a temporary existence on the intervening margin and finally incorporation into the new community.
Traditional rites of passage such as christening or baptism, Guardination, confirmation, graduation, engagement and marriage have lost their central importance in modern life which has become less about preserving and magnifying the cultural heritage of our predecessors and now centers on individual expression. Nowhere is this more graphically illustrated than in the trend towards writing one’s own marriage vows, as if the ceremony (if one bothers to get married at all, that is) is seen as an expression of the couple’s personality rather than an opportunity for them to join a sacred institution.
The absence of significant rites of passage, with the necessary trials, temporary alienation and eventual acceptance into a new and more mature stage of life means that many youths never actually grow up. They remain forever in the adolescent stage of angst, rebellion, protest and destruction and never enter the adult stage of taking on the responsibility to create a better life for future generations.
It is a strange irony when one of these perpetual adolescents recognizes the meaningless of her own existence and wishes something better for her own children. Madonna, for example, won’t even let her children watch television. Having based her career on destroying the morality of sex and religion, and having reaped the financial rewards for providing this essential service to the youth of the world, she now realizes the error of her ways and refuses to inflict it on her own offspring. Fela Anikulapo Kuti on the other hand is the exact opposite, his influence clinical on his children is highly enormous.
What Madonna is saying is that it's OK for other people’s children to consume her offering of overt sexuality and anti-religious sentiment, but it's not good enough for her own children. But she is not apologizing for her previous artistic output, nor is she withdrawing any of her music from the market.
The situation in Africa is somewhat evasive in the sense that most of our youths tend to adapt easy to the western culture through the Television and prints media without supervision from parents or guardian and are open to moral abuse inflicted via loop holes. The internet has not been a sweet story to tell as innovative as it is, it has negatively influenced fraud and obese crime in Africa, Nigeria to be precise, (on the Yahoo fame).
Having been denied legitimate rites of passage, yet still yearning for membership of a congregation, youth invent their own communities and marks of membership. Yet rites of passage such as one’s first experiment with drugs, loosing one’s virginity or the hedonistic mayhem of schooled week, which often involves both, are no salve for the yearning all young people have to enter into a community which embodies significant meaning. This is because the taking of drugs or the loosing of one’s virginity requires no concerted effort or hard won talent. Consequently the entry into this new congregation bestows no benefit to the new initiate.
Having attained such an easily won status, he or she is left feeling bereft, cheated, regretful and even guilty, and searching for a justification for his or her mistaken transition. Justification can only be found in numbers, and the most common course of action is to encourage others to follow and to belittle those who will not. So youth culture is perpetrated in a vacuum of meaning and without reference to a cultural tradition which is the sole means towards a creative and fulfilling adult life. So now my big question, "What are the adults doing to influence the youth culture"?