During the months of Covid lockdowns, I know there have been new ideas and dreams bubbling up inside of people. Whether you found inspiration from time alone or something frustrated you enough to do something and get innovative, now is the time to start and here are some of my thoughts around developing an idea!
1. Start small: It’s not that your idea doesn’t have potential, it probably does, but it deserves to start well! When we first have our idea it is often grand, exciting and multi-layered. We have these big dreams of what it will look like one day and all the different aspects to it. The problem is, often our grand plans are based on assumptions we have made about the market and what we assume our market wants, which can be dangerous if we invest everything into these assumptions.
It's not the exciting or glamorous thing to do, but to save yourself a lot of money and pain, the best thing you can do is pick one small part of your idea, preferably whatever the core idea is, and test it with as little investment as possible. You want to test the product/service, the delivery, the price point, the target market and most importantly, the point of difference to competitors! Then, once you take your feedback, data and learnings, you can tweak the model where needed and invest in something you KNOW your market is looking for.
2. Ask for feedback
Often we want to keep our idea quiet until we think it is good enough for a perfect and grand reveal. What we do is we invest everything into it without showing anyone, once again, basing everything on our market assumptions. Then, because we have invested all of our resources and so much of our identity into this idea, we are too scared of feedback and we get scared, avoiding anything even remotely negative.
However, market feedback is actually your greatest tool in business and you want it as early as possible! In my first year of business, a potential client who chose not to work with us offered to sit down and explain why they didn't want to work with us and what they were looking for. Everything within me wanted to protect myself and say 'no thank you!' but I went to this sit-down and her feedback actually led me to develop one of our most successful products yet! Feedback is your friend and in the discomfort may come your greatest innovation yet.
3. Trust your gut but not your feelings.
We all love the high of a new idea. It’s one of my favourite feelings.
But then often after starting, that anxiety creeps and wakes you up in the middle of the night, or grips you when you go to talk to a customer. We often read into those feelings and think that they are a sign we shouldn't continue.
I was talking to a young videographer last year and he was saying that he loves his work, but when he thinks about it as his business, he gets anxious and wonders if that is a sign he should stop. Of course not!
Fear always seems to lurk around the really important steps in life.
A quote I love, says, ‘fear is most dangerous when it masquerades as wisdom.’
If your business is something that you know you are supposed to do and you are testing your product/service with low investment, then when you ‘feel’ scared or anxious, you need to call it out as fear. It is not a sign.
Starting a side hustle can be scary and lonely, but your feelings are just that, fleeting and fickle. Remember your why and trust your gut.
4. Never be annoyed or embarrassed about starting small and running your business ‘on the side’
Any time you are doing something you love and you are connecting that with people, it is a success. It is even more of a success if they are paying you for it!
Everyone is so different and each business grows at a different rate depending on the founder’s time/capacity and the market. For me personally, those years of starting small and gradually adding other team members, while working other jobs, are the reason that we have the processes and brand consistency that we do. Whether you are still in school, uni or working another job, starting small allows for longevity and if that’s where you want to go, starting small is what allows you to grow big.
I can’t wait to hear of all of the innovative, creative and downright progressive projects that come out of this time!
Cheering you on,
Cass
