I’ve decided to actually go out and buy a domain name to create a website consolidating all my various interests.  I’ll be continuing the Ideas Factory format in the Business section of my new site so please come along and have a look! 
I’ll also have sections on photography, gaming, interesting web sites plus forums and classified adverts and more!

Come visit at:

www.kaldian.co.uk

Hope to see you there!

So you’ve got this great idea and have been thinking about it for a while.  You’ve finally decided that the idea is so good you want to create a new business from it, so what do you need to do now?
There are quite a lot of steps involved in making that dream a reality so lets have a look at a few:

Flesh out your idea
Try to think of every aspect of your idea, starting with essentials like “Where will I get my supplies?” through to “What makes my idea stand out from the crowd?”.  Its usually a good idea to make a list of these questions and answer as fully as possible.  This can help define the structure of your idea and will give rise to further questions to help understand your prospective business.

Research competition
There are usually several people already doing something similar to your idea and if not you have to question why.  Having already established practitioners of your idea proves that the basis of the idea works, but having no other implemetations of your idea means a lot of extra work and bigger risk for you.  When looking into competitors, try to discover the details that make them successful by using their product or service yourself, asking peoples opinions, analysing the location and generally gaining as much information about them as possible.  You may notice areas you believe you could improve upon or perhaps realise that your own idea needs revising in order to compete effectively.

Find your competitive edge
In relation to the points above, one of the most important things to do is to clearly define what makes your idea better than all the others out there.  This will involve some of the research described above in order to compare and contrast your idea.  When you know your edge over competitors you can focus upon it when building and advertising your business to make it obvious to consumers the benefits of using your product/service over everyone elses.  If you don’t stand out then people have no reason to choose you over anyone else.

Gather opinions
Now that you’ve researched your idea and your competitors fully it is time to get other peoples opinions of your idea.  It’s best to have a brief description of your idea to explain it to people in short and then if they seem interested you can expand your overview.  Just go and tell everyone you know about it and judge their reactions, constantly talk about it and gather all the feedback you can as it might improve your idea.  People love giving their opinions so you should take advantage.

Work out the costs
One of the most difficult parts of any idea development is defining the cost of starting up.  Try to think of every aspect that will go into turning your idea into a business, from the cost of renting premises right down to paper and pens for research.  Try to split your overall costs into 3 estimates, below average, average and above average giving a difference of about 25% in each so you can work with a broad range of possiblities.

Get some help
Don’t be afraid to ask for help from friends and family, they will often be willing to help you get started and will not cost you much.  Also learn to realise when you just don’t have enough knowledge or expertise for a particular task and need to bring someone in for it.  If hiring professionals ensure you update your costs accordingly.  No one knows everything there is to know about business so don’t worry if you need help!

When it comes to starting a new business, bigger isnt always better.  With a smaller business it becomes easier to test the water with your idea due mainly to lower costs.  Lower startup costs mean less overall risk which takes a bit of pressure off in the early days of raising finance and allows you to focus more on other aspects.  There is a lot to be said for having a small business which is a specialist in one or two particular areas as opposed to a large, cover all type affair.  Being the jack of all trades may suit some business models but others thrive from being the master of their particular niche.

Lets take a new restaurant as an example of this.  On initial planning you may believe it is preferable to have a large location with plenty of kitchen space, lots of covers and a diverse menu in order to maximise profit.  This makes sense as the more people you can provide food for the more money you will make.  The downside to this approach (although i’m sure there are many) is your business model, your idea, is not tested until the day you open your massive doors.  What happens then when you don’t fill up this large space regularly?  You end up with a massive debt (from startup and running costs) and eventually have to close, leaving a financial mess which could take years to fix and potentially put you off entering the business world again.  Sure, you can do market research (always recommended) but you’ll never truly know until you open the doors whether or not it will be a success.

The alternative approach is to rent a very small location, only a handful of covers and a small, specialised menu with which every dish is your speciality.  This way you are testing out your idea with a lot less risk and avoiding potential financial disasters.  If the business is not a success in this case, you can usually walk away with only a small debt and your time lost.  If you are successful using this approach then you can look for larger premises knowing that you will be able to fill the space.  You will also have a good idea of how to outfit and open such a place having already done it once before.

Of course, some business ideas would not suit this approach but I think it is worth considering starting out small versus big whenever a new idea springs to mind.

There are many things to consider when starting up a new business venture but one of the most important is what it will cost.  Cost is not just simply the price of stock, rent and fixtures but also things like rates per day, personal cost and time cost.

When writing costs for a new business plan I believe it is best to always provide three estimates: Below Average, Average and Above Average.  For example, a restaurant may want to buy fancy plates but you could just as well get by with standard ones.  These two options would be covered in below and above average costs.

If compiling three different cost plans seems like too much work (though many people would say all business is hard work) perhaps an easier way is to make your ‘main’ costing plan and make that your Average costs then take 25% off (or 10% or 15%) and make that Below Average and the same amount added makes your Above Average costs. 

If you do similar bracketing for your turnover projections you can get a good idea of how the business will cope in various situations.  It can also serve as an early warning if it seems that the only way you can turn a profit is with Below Average costs and Above Average turnover!

This type of bracketing is also useful when predicting growth too. 

So you get up in the morning after a nice long sleep, take your time getting ready and stroll to work in the morning.  Work is well paid, quite interesting and full of young, vibrant people who all get along well.  The days go quickly and you’re kept busy but not overworked, with slow periods not being long enough to become bored.

Many people would consider the above scenario as a good job.  It pays the bills, keeps you interested and generally allows you to get through the week easily and enjoy your time outside of work.  However, in my opinion there’s a problem with this path:

You will wake up one day in 20 years time and wonder “What have I done with my life?”

What happened to all the hopes and dreams?  Becoming a millionaire and living the highlife or “finding yourself” in some mountain temple in far east asia.  What about taking exciting risks or truly searching for that perfect function for you in life?

When you are following such a comfortable (but not truly fulfilling) life it is very easy to watch the time fly by without you achieving any of your other life goals.  You might be one of the rare people who can make every evening and weekend productive but most people after a week at work want nothing more than to relax and do very little.  This leads to missing out on your true life goals and ambitions.

Personally, I would like to start my own business but my day job keeps getting in the way.  Its a circular problem - I need money to start my own business but earning that money inhibits starting a business.  So much effort is required in the working day, which means very little gets done outside of work.  I certainly don’t want to be asking the highlighted question above but unfortunately the answer to this problem still eludes me…

A friend of mine asked me an interesting question today and as a game developer I had an instant answer but as a game player it provoked some thought.  Speaking about the new Grand Theft Auto game he asked, “Why can’t PS3 owners play against XBOX 360 owners?”. 

Well, why not I thought, and the technical among you may talk about incompatibilities between platforms and the amount of work it would take.  The fact is that it would be great for all gamers out there to be able to play together seamlessly but it seems, as usual, the money has got in the way. 

Taking a very idealistic view, it would be great if companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft would all work together to create a “super console” which all developers worked on to make a wide range of games, rather than sterotyping a console and its games towards a particular section of the market.

It’ll never happen, but its nice to dream!

I often wonder if I have what it takes to become a successful entrepreneur.  Is it enough that I can come up with plenty of ideas for a business?  The answer is obviously, no.  So what sort of qualities does one need to make it as a entrepreneur?  The following are some things I believe you need, there are probably lots more to consider!

Perseverance
“If at first you don’t succeed, try and try again”.  That old quote says it all really, there will be plenty of times where you fail in your entrepreneuristic endeavours but a good entrepreneur will take all he can from the failure and give it another go.

Confidence
If you don’t have full confidence in your own abilities and ideas you are likely to fail.  Confidence in yourself comes from trusting your knowledge and ability, which in itself comes from spending time expanding your knowledge and developing your abilities.  Personal development leads to trust which leads to confidence.  simple really! :)  To have full confidence in your ideas you must know every detail inside out by spending time researching them fully.

Ability to take risks
Sometimes in life you will come across opportunities which may seem too good to be true.  Most of the time they are but every now and then it could be a potential goldmine with the right person willing to take the risk with it.  Aside from these “golden opportunities” just getting out of bed one day and deciding to become an entrepreneur is a great risk in itself and one which most of us don’t take.

Not afraid of hard work
Being an entrepreneur is hard work, plain and simple.  The responsibility is fully on your shoulders and you must be willing to do whatever it takes to become successful.  This is another area I think puts off a lot of people from going into business for themselves.

Creativity
Creativity covers many areas like coming up with original ideas or thinking different ways around common problems.  I don’t think this attribute is as important as the others but it certainly helps.
Like I said, this is just a short list of a few attributes I personally think are important to entrepreneurs.  The good thing is that it doesn’t really matter if you don’t have them all just yet as I believe anyone can learn/develop them with the right amount of effort.

As I was walking to work this morning in the glorious sunshine I started to think about living somewhere that is sunny all the time.  Following this trail of thought, I wondered what sort of business I could run which would take advantage of the weather in this lovely sunny country and came up with a few ideas:

Youth Hostel
I’ve been lucky enough to have the opportunity to stay in many different types of hostel, ranging from ‘budget’ style 12-crammed-in-a-room to plush semi-private 4 person room places.  Some were very clean, almost sterile in appearance, while others go for a more rustic or colourful design.  Hostels which offer just a basic ‘bed and a roof’ are as just as common as the ‘mega-hostel’ style of offering every service a backpacker could ever dream of needing.

Surf Shack
This is more for the love than the money though I do think in the right location you could still make a fair profit.  Such a place might offer surfing lessons for beginners, board and wetsuit hire as well as stocking a range of summer & beach ware.

Lifeguards for Hire
Taking a different line of thought for a life on the beach, a business supplying and training lifeguards could be interesting and profitable.  The business could act as an employment agency and offer full, government recognised lifeguard training (I’m not sure on the legal requirements of this) as well as extra training courses for all supplied lifeguards in order to stand out from the crowd.  Extra courses could be things like advanced first aid, basic massage/physio concepts, customer service and management. 

Beachfront Bar
Not much explaination required here!  A nice open terrace bar overlooking the sea serving ice cold beers and cocktails and maybe even food.  Generally hard work but it cant be beaten for social interaction and possibility of generating large profits if its done right.  Of course, what is ‘right’?

Welcome to Ideas Factory. 

My first post won’t be anything special except to give an overview of what to expect:

- Idea of the Week:  Will be updated weekly (or daily or monthly…) with a new idea to contemplate.
- Categoried Posts:  Every so often (hopefully twice a week) I will add ideas to the various categories.
- Links:  Lots of links to useful websites, updated regularly.

This blog is really just a personal record of ideas, designs, random thoughts and other bits and pieces to do with my interests, mainly business and gaming.  I’m not trying to have 1000’s of regular visitors or a large community aspect but comments are always welcome, especially constructive comments on my ideas.