There are people who are very creative! There are people who have an enormous capacity to, just by looking at something, identify an opportunity to do business. People who can draw on a sheet of paper a new process or who can make notes on a napkin while discussing a new idea when they are having a coffee. However, there are still many people who have difficulty moving from notes and inspiration to a business plan with economic viability.
That ability that people have to generate business ideas is much more pronounced in today’s world because the internet has facilitated and encouraged innovation. That happens because creating a new business has never been so easy and the cost has never been so low. The entrepreneur has never been in such a high demand as he is today. Every day we meet new examples of people who, even at very early age and without experience, became millionaires from a new idea or a new way of implementing a business. Every day we also see new business models, we see online companies where it is not clear to us what they are selling, or whom they are invoicing, that is, it is not clear to us how they make money. There are innovative business models in which users receive a free service because they are not customers. Facebook is a good example of that, since its users receive a free communication service with their friends, relatives and clients, through which they can share data, photos, videos, experiences and do not have to pay anything for that.
Innovative business models, the ease of creating new ventures and reaching markets without borders that we have today, encourage new ideas. So do Collaborative economy (shared economy) and work spaces in groups and in cooperation (coworking) that, through free exchange, help to create new ideas and innovative ways of doing things. When we fall in love for those new tools, they lead us to think about providing products or services to the community without thinking about the result. And, often, we see people with many ideas in their heads but without a business plan, without a way to monetize their ideas. They are people who surely need help from someone who can understand their ideas, interpret their goals and translate them into the equation of revenue minus costs equals results. You have to know how to question and evaluate the possible sources of income because, as has already been said, there are business models that are not clear to us. Technology today allows us to provide a service at no cost to a community of users while obtaining income from other sources, such as traffic on the page. You also have to know how to clearly identify the costs and that comes from the exact identification of the processes that are needed to sell a product or provide a service. In the process part, we must bear in mind that people have different and growing needs and that the enterprise has to move forward to satisfy them.
From the correct identification of those natural components, so necessary in any business, we can then evaluate the economic result of the idea. Here the ability to write with simple but exact words what is the potential business of an idea is absolutely key. The act of writing the idea from the point of view of who wants to create a business clarifies the thoughts and provides a path to the creation of a venture. Knowing how to download an idea to paper is key. Of course, the paper here is just an expression because technology also provides us with editors of texts and forms of storage that do not require the physical form of paper. Writing well is the key. It is the written word that transforms inspiration into a possible business because it is from its writing that an idea is communicated to collaborators, investors, partners, users and customers.
Based on the good formulation of the idea, an experienced consultant can make the sales and results projections, create a plan so that the idea becomes known and demanded by its users or clients, evaluate the capital needs for the investment and the return that capital will have over time and, in short, present a good business plan from the inspiration overturned in some notes or drawings on a napkin.