A startup founder needs to have multiple ideas in mind before selecting the one that is most suitable for the firm. Zeroing in on a particular startup idea is essential. Because it’s not just an idea or thought, but the foundation for your firm.
If your startup idea is not right or in sync with the customer’s demand, your startup won’t move further. All great business firms, which were once a startup started off their businesses with a great idea.
Though many entrepreneurs claim that ‘Ideas don’t matter, execution does,’ it’s far from reality.
In this article, we’ll take a look at the importance of startup ideas and why they matter. We’ll also discuss some useful tips and tools through which entrepreneurs can generate new ideas that work!
Top Reasons Why Startup Ideas Matter
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Makes Your Business Unique
If your idea is first-of-its-kind and difficult to copy, you won’t have a lot of competitors. It’s good and can do wonders for your sales.
Once you’ve got started with your business, get the necessary patents and apply for IPR (Intellectual Property Rights) right away.
When you get the patent right or if your IPR application is approved, it’ll become difficult for your competitors to copy your idea and float a business around it.
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Simplifies the Execution Process
All great ideas may remain futile if you don’t execute them well. But before executing ideas, you should make sure that they are at least executable.
If your startup idea is pragmatic and in sync with the latest trends and preferences of customers, your staff will be in a better position to execute them. At the same time, if your startup idea is great, but relatively difficult to implement, your team may have a tough time executing your ideas.
For example, if you’re a startup working on developing an advanced device for scientists; it’ll take time. Even though the idea is great, you’ll have a tough time translating your ideas into reality.
Science is a highly specialized subject and relatively difficult to understand. That’s why you need candidates who have relevant experience and knowledge to oversee the entire concept-to-creation stages of the product.
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Helps In Long-term Stability and Growth
As most startups cater to particular pain points of customers, your startup idea should revolve around them. Your startup should offer meaningful products and solutions that address customers’ concerns.
If you’re not too passionate about the idea you’re working on, you won’t succeed in the long term.
That’s why startup idea generation matters and startup founders need to be cautious about how they wish to go ahead with their ideas.
Now, the question that arises here is how can you go ahead with idea generation?
Sometimes, it’s common that a startup founder may go slow or be unable to come up with interesting ideas. It can be a classic case of a creative block and the firm owner may not understand how to go ahead.
In such a situation, you must explore new ideas.
Here are some simple tips to generate ideas for your business:
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Use SCAMPER Technique
SCAMPER is an acronym for Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to Alternative uses, Eliminate, and Reverse.
It’s a complete process of idea generation. This technique is now widely used for generating ideas for business.
Here’s How It Works
Substitute: You can substitute a part of your concept or idea with another alternative option to see if the latter can lead to better results.
Combine: How about combining two ideas and making them one? See, if it proves to be better for your firm or not.
Adapt: Making necessary adaptations to your idea will make it more flexible and achievable. It can also help you improve your idea or concept.
Modify: Modifying an idea means you are accommodating other thoughts into it. It helps you analyze your idea from a different perspective and check its utility.
Put to Another Use: It means you’re using the existing idea for another purpose and see if it can generate better results there.
Eliminate: It identifies how the idea would work if any part of the concept was removed.
Reverse: This technique is all about changing the elements of an idea and reversing their order.
Thus, SCAMPER is basically a brainstorming concept. Using this technique, you can certainly experiment with your idea in various ways and find out if that works for your startup or not.
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Idea Challenge
Another approach is to go for an idea challenge method where you have to take challenges and suggest meaningful solutions to the same.
Here, you can involve all necessary people or team members who will take part in the ideation process. Using this method you can get multiple ideas (revolving around a predetermined theme) from various perspectives.
It is suitable for startup founders looking forward to coming up with multiple ideas and their expected benefits by executing them in the startup.
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Reverse Thought Process
Opposite thinking or reverse thought process is a good technique when your team is struggling to come up with fresh ideas.
This technique may also help you come across out-of-the-box ideas, which can be beneficial to your business.
Thinking the opposite or brainstorming over out-of-the-box ideas can help the entrepreneur see things from a different perspective, and encourage employees to develop working on ideas that they haven’t thought about before.
Besides all these techniques, now many startup firms use idea-generation tools or software. They integrate these tools into their firms to get fresh ideas.
For your help, we’ll briefly describe these tools and see how they work.
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MindMeister
If you’re running short of ideas, you can use MindMeister. It’s one of the most popular mind-mapping tools for sharing ideas. The app has an interactive UI that helps you execute multiple creative tasks within a specific period.
Some of these tasks include planning, ideation, and note-taking, among others. Many startups use the app during the brainstorming process to come up with innovative thoughts and ideas, especially before executing their marketing campaigns.
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Kindling
Kindling is easy to use and comes with an intuitive dashboard. It is another idea management tool that lets you test your creative ideas and improve them if required.
Startup founders can use this tool to discuss poignant issues with the community and seek their opinions.
For example, a startup founder can present his idea and ask for suggestions. Employees may also come up with their ideas and share the same with him or her. Now, based on further analysis, he can choose an idea that can really work.
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Ideawake
As the name suggests, Ideawake can be a useful tool to generate new ideas. Many firms use it to accomplish their concept-to-creation goal while marketing their startup products or services.
In Conclusion
If you’re a startup founder and wish to create a unique product or service, which can help customers at large, don’t wait anymore. Go ahead and start translating your ideas into reality. Strong ideas and innovative thoughts can do wonders for any startup. You can use these tools and techniques to see how they can help and take your business forward.
