i have a business idea! what now?

alienhead

ok, i have a business idea, i seen one that i thought of last year, in operation the other day, so it's made me think, mabybe this one could work.

right, first off, i haven't a clue about business, this is just an idea in my head at the mo, it's a product not a service by the way.

if i want to get it off the gound what do i need to do?

what are the steps?

patents, how do they work?

business projections?

implimenting.......

does anyone know any good websites that explain how to do this, or books?

thanks, sorry if i've been vague.

Avns1s

Find out the name and location of your nearest City or County Enterprise Board and talk to their officials.

mox54

First, forget about patents, they're very complicated and are very very expensive - a good patent could cost you in excess of €50,000 - you will hear about the old registered letter trick but that's full of holes and fairly worthless as well.


First step is to assess if it is a good idea/product - besides thinking this yourself you need other peoples opinions - you need some basic market research and then you can assess the market size, competition etc etc etc.

If you think you have a market and it's a good viable market, the rest is fairly simple because investors will want to invest in your product and perhaps here is where enterprse boards come in....personally I think shannon development or enterprise ireland are fairly good on knowing a good/bad idea so perhaps start there.

If you want marketing assistance try www.moynemarketingservices.com, they'll put together a research package for you to assess your product/market and see if it can be taken forward.

Best of luck.:D

alienhead

thanks for feedback

mox54 wrote:

First, forget about patents, they're very complicated and are very very expensive - a good patent could cost you in excess of €50,000 - you will hear about the old registered letter trick but that's full of holes and fairly worthless as well.

wow, didn't know it costs that much. it's not like a new invention or anything, just an idea i think would work, i know i'd use it anyway


First step is to assess if it is a good idea/product - besides thinking this yourself you need other peoples opinions - you need some basic market research and then you can assess the market size, competition etc etc etc.

any idea's how to go about this? is it just as simple as asking friends and family?

If you think you have a market and it's a good viable market, the rest is fairly simple because investors will want to invest in your product and perhaps here is where enterprse boards come in....personally I think shannon development or enterprise ireland are fairly good on knowing a good/bad idea so perhaps start there.

first off, what is an enterpris board? is it a bunch of private investors? or gov run?

if i go to these guys with an idea, and they think it's a runner, would they not just steal my idea, what's to stop them? do i go to them when i've got a working prototype, business plan?

If you want marketing assistance try www.moynemarketingservices.com, they'll put together a research package for you to assess your product/market and see if it can be taken forward.

Best of luck.:D

mox54

Patents are that expensive I'm afraid and the Patent Office is overworked and understaffed -

You should do some basic research but before you do that would it may be a good idea to ask Shannon Dvelopment / Enterprise Ireland for their advice - they're always happy to speak to people about new ideas/services/products - after that they can help with real marketing and business set up etc so maybe that's the start.

Good Luck with it!:o

DOLEMAN

Don't get your hopes up about getting money from Enterprise Ireland or the County Council.

Enterprise Ireland are only interested in companies who will be making a few million in a few years. The County Councils have hardly any grant money to give.

Give it a shot, but don't expect them to help you.

The advice I would give regarding running a business is to make sure you have good sales skills. No matter how talented you are in your area of expertise, if you don't know how to sell you'll have problems.

mox54

Thanks for that positive feedback - :rolleyes:

Enterprise Ireland etc won't give you money necessarily but they know their onions and have seen it all so they can spot a success a mile off and advise properly - and it FREE!!!!!.

Selling skills are only any good to you is you have a product that the market wants - sand is useless to an Arab - market research is the starting point - no getting away from it - can't be avoided - don't leave it on the long finger etc etc etc.

DOLEMAN

mox54 wrote:

Thanks for that positive feedback - :rolleyes:

Enterprise Ireland etc won't give you money necessarily but they know their onions and have seen it all so they can spot a success a mile off and advise properly - and it FREE!!!!!.

Selling skills are only any good to you is you have a product that the market wants - sand is useless to an Arab - market research is the starting point - no getting away from it - can't be avoided - don't leave it on the long finger etc etc etc.

My post was for the OP, not you.

We can agree to disagree on Enterprise Ireland (maybe I was just dealing with the office idiot in that place) but you cannot dismiss the importance of having sales skills. Even if the market wants what you have to offer, if you do not know how to make them aware of your product and get money from them, the company will go no where...

alienhead

DOLEMAN wrote:

Don't get your hopes up about getting money from Enterprise Ireland or the County Council.

i didn't even know they gave out money! so you're tellen me there's a chance:D

Enterprise Ireland are only interested in companies who will be making a few million in a few years. The County Councils have hardly any grant money to give.

why is this, is it a case that they get their share of the spoils?

Give it a shot, but don't expect them to help you.


The advice I would give regarding running a business is to make sure you have good sales skills. No matter how talented you are in your area of expertise, if you don't know how to sell you'll have problems.

have no sales skills, and would hate to work in sales, but of course, this would be a big part when looking for investment

.................

alienhead

DOLEMAN wrote:

(maybe I was just dealing with the office idiot in that place) but you cannot dismiss the importance of having sales skills. Even if the market wants what you have to offer, if you do not know how to make them aware of your product and get money from them, the company will go no where...

so, what did you do doleman? just ring em up and say you're looking for investment capital?

i understand about marketing, the idea i have, well i don't think it would need that much marketing as such.

DOLEMAN

alienhead wrote:

so, what did you do doleman? just ring em up and say you're looking for investment capital?

I both wrote and spoke to them. EI were totally uninterested. Basically because my product would only be used by Irish people (no exporting) I didn't qualify for any grants or assistance. I can't remember the figures, but it's something like you must be exporting 1.5 million worth of goods within 3 years or something like that.

I am aware there is probably a "system" you can use to get money from them, but I'm too honest for that kind of thing

I also wrote and spoke to my local County Council. They told me if I want to set up a creche they have loads of money for me, but an IT company, they can't help me... They told me they have a budget of something like 100k to share between thousands of local companies.

There is a FAS course which is one evening a week for 8 weeks called "Running your own business". It's quite good - very motivating and it touches off all the aspects of running a business (accounting, marketing, etc.)

Please don't let me put you off setting up a business. I just want you to have a realistic view of how tough it is. Worst case scenario you'll learn a lot (about business and yourself) so you should defo go for it...

emul

Put your idea down on paper, try and work out a business plan around it.
What will it cost to make?
How will you distribute - online, store etc?
Try and get some idea of market potential?
If you don't want to be in sales - then how will it get to market?
What capital will you need to invest (if physical product - cost of prototype)

Have a look at http://www.startingabusinessinireland.com/businessplans.htm
for some thoughts around this document.

Then share this document with your closest friends (be careful). Go to the small business advisor in your bank - ask them for input / thoughts. Contact the Small Firms Association and see what help they can give (I don't know what services they offer - but try)


Best of luck

Eoin

alienhead

thanks for all the feedback, very helpfull

ednwireland

dont forget county enterprise boards and local development companies you can get money for feasibilty studies etc also free advice

http://www.enterpriseboards.ie/

http://www.startingabusinessinireland.com/catcommunity.htm

have fun

Darragh29

DOLEMAN wrote:

Don't get your hopes up about getting money from Enterprise Ireland or the County Council.

Enterprise Ireland are only interested in companies who will be making a few million in a few years. The County Councils have hardly any grant money to give.

Give it a shot, but don't expect them to help you.

The advice I would give regarding running a business is to make sure you have good sales skills. No matter how talented you are in your area of expertise, if you don't know how to sell you'll have problems.

This is the best bit of business start-up advice I've heard recently. I recently started up a small business and although I had a great business idea, I didn't put enough focus on actual sales and sales leads, instead I basically "sub-contracted" my sales effort out to the Golden Pages, which didn't work as I had been led to expect it would.

The same is true for the County Enterprise Boards, you won't get any help from them for a small start-up business. The truth is that if you are starting up a small business, you are on your own. The banks don't want to know you, the County Enterprise Boards comprise of political appointees & union representatives, two of the least likely types of people to take the risk of starting up a small business. I'm picking up the pieces of my own operation and am starting it up again, this time I'll have a business mentor who is running a sucessful small business and who is at the end of the phone to guide me along the right tracks and I'm also taking responsibility for sales within the company. It is hard to knock together the confidence to do "cold" sales calls, knocking on doors of people who never heard of you and trying to sell your products & services to them, but it is so worth it to run your own business.

dianemulcahy

I am a former VC (in the US) and the author of a book called Venturing Forward: A Practical Guide to Raising Equity Capital in Ireland. I wrote it for entrepreneurs like yourself who wanted to figure out how to start a company, raise capital and grow. It covers the basics - forming a company, preparing to raise money, etc., all the way to raising VC. It has 16 appendices that provide step by step advice, sample documents, and lots of website references.

Hodges & Figgis and Easons stock it in Dublin if you want to flip through it, or you can order it online at www.oaktreepress.com.

Good luck !

Diane Mulcahy
www.dianemulcahy.com

Peter McC

alienhead wrote:

ok, i have a business idea, i seen one that i thought of last year, in operation the other day, so it's made me think, mabybe this one could work.

Hi Alienhead, I'm not a business whiz but would suggest that you study the competition in action. Go to the one you saw in operation the other day and start taking notes.

Research

• Is there an 'R' or 'TM' on the product?
• Check packaging to see where it was made and by who.
• Check their website if they have one. This is an invaluable resource and may be a template for a business model if it lists sponsors, clients, product benefits, various uses for product you may not have considered etc.
• Get as much print advertising related to the product as you can, get a costing of from there.
• Ring the company that produces the product you saw and ask for a brochure and any other information they might have.

Money
Calculate how much you need for everything from a pencil right through to delivery of the product. Now double it.

Funding
EI and County Enterprise Boards are well worth going to even if they can't give you the funding and help you want right now. I bet if your idea has legs you'll at least get a business Mentor from one of them and they'll remember you when you fit their criteria in the future.
Also, be careful of taking loans from banks and others before you have your homework done. You don't need a debt with interest added over your head if you're struggling to figure out how to get this off the ground.

Time
You're probably looking at a year lead-in time at least; stick to the day job and be patient.

Go for it!

Lal

There are LOTS of resources online and plenty of others (library, bookstores, amazon, local chamber, many business assocations etc...)

Don't worry about being 'secret' regd. your business idea. It normally means diddly-squat. The more u can talk about the more feedback and advice/suggestions (both postive and negative (which u need)) u'll get.

Its all about execution i.e. how u're gonna go from idea into a viable (software I presume) product, market it, sell it, run the business.
The idea is only 5-10% of it.
Where u go from here is whats it all about.

I come across many ideas, startups etc. (I act as an advisor on many) and most fail because of not focusing on the key essentials:
- what 'pain' does your product solve (in what market)
- how much are your 'customers' willing to pay for it
- how are u different from the competition (they is ALWAYS someone else similiar)
- how will you develop, market and sell it
- what does it take to support the above
The rest is all part of those key points.

Listen to the advice/words-of-wisdom from posts above. Go do your homework (R&D and whatever else it takes). The only one stopping u is yourself.

Go 4 it!