If you were a boss at picking winning racehorses, timing stock purchases, or knew every time a Roulette Wheel was about to hit Double Zero you'd be raining cash. Knowing how to pick winners is a crazy valuable skill. And in this article, I'll show you 7 ways to test your ideas to do just that.
The Problem: You have ideas, but don't know which you should invest time in and pursue. Let's face it not every idea is a good idea. You've even seen major companies make product flops. Product Flops are expensive and can even kill a company. Professional Inventors are well aware of this and use proven tricks BEFORE investing in an idea. Here are 7 Tricks they use that you can use.
There is a euphoria that innovators feel when we first notice an idea. It is amazing. Our minds starts to apply our idea to every potential situation on the planet, and soon we're calculating our riches. We think, "if I just sell X at $Y, I'll never have to work again!" Our brain is pretty convincing. Soon we're quitting our job, selling our home, ordering a million units and guess what... we don't even know if the idea is any good.
Time for a reality check. Live through the euphoria and see what you think about the idea after a good night of sleep. Many of the people I work with are much happier when they evaluate their idea after the euphoria subsided.
If the idea was great today, it will be great tomorrow. Take a bite from Eve's apple and look at the idea again when you're sober with reality. Is it as good as you thought a day later? If yes, move to step 2, if not, spend more time on it to see where it goes.
Ask potential customers, in a particular way, The Big Question. Sounds cool right? It is, and it works.
The Big Question is a question that reveals if someone needs your invention so much that they'd pay for it. The question should be open-ended, nebulous but straightforward. You're exploring, not educating. You want to hear what they have to say.
The Big Question works better if they don't know it's your idea. People lie when they think it's your idea because they don't want to hurt your feelings.
Examples of The Big Question are,
Then listen to them. Their first question/statement reveals a lot.
If they say, "Wow, I'd like that, what does it cost?" You may have a winner. If they say, "ABC Corp tried that years ago, and no one wanted it." Or, "it depends on price if it's more than $1 no one will buy it." Or "I do it by hand in 3 seconds for free, that is worthless for me."
The first answer ("ABC Corp tried"), say's there may be a need but ABC didn't execute well, or there is no need and ABC misread the market.
The second answer "depends on the price," reveals that the market may like the product but places a low value on it.
The third answer, "worthless for me," means they don't see value in it.
Their responses are designed to guide you. They may be wrong. But get as many opinions as you can knowing they may be wrong. Plenty of people said, "We don't need cars... we have horses."
They may be wrong but understand they may be right. It's better to kill an idea before you mortgage the house and sell the dog. Take the information and process it in your brain. Give each person's response the appropriate weight and either kill the idea or move it ahead or do more tests.
Don't ignore things that seem universal. If everyone is saying similar things, you will need to address it at some time in the future.
Make a Physical Frankenstein Prototype. It doesn't need to look good. It just needs to work, kinda-sorta, maybe once. This type of prototype tells you oodles about your idea. You see the barnacles and warts and get a glimpse into its potential future. Plus, you'll have proved it works. This is called reduction to practice and you use to help file your patent.
I've made prototypes by dumping my junk drawer out onto my desk and assembling parts with epoxy putty, IR glue, and duck tape.
A 3D printer is great but a Frankenstein Prototype can usually be made faster, often cheaper and 1000% uglier. The power is in the ugly.
If it works, you'll love it no matter what it looks like. And when you don't care about the looks, you tend to focus on functionality.
"If women don't find you handsome, they should at least find you handy."
Red Green of The Red Green Show
A Sell Sheet is a one-page brochure that tells what your idea is, how it works, what it costs, why people need it and is designed to make a person want to buy the idea. And by "buy" I mean for real purchase, give you a credit card and expect delivery "buy." You should only do this if you have IP protection (patent filed, the trademark registered, domain name purchased) and you know 1000000% that it works, is legal to sell and is safe.
I have used sell-sheets and Frankenstein prototypes to sign sales orders, license deals, and wholesale orders. You can do the same.
You have to be relatively far along to get a crowdfunding campaign to succeed. But getting one to fund shows your product is wanted. And the initial orders can make your invention a licensing target. It could also make you a knock-off target so get your IP in order first. And then take a big swing at the next fastball.
Okay, so you've made one and liked it. Then you made two, and your Uncle Ron liked it. Usually, no one cares what Uncle Ron thinks, but your Uncle Ron owns a Convenience Store. And he agreed to let you put up a POP (Point of Purchase) display with 12 units in it. He won't pay you for them but, he'll take in the money and give you 1/2 after they sell.
Way to go Uncle Ron. This is called a Consignment Sale. And you will get a glimpse of how your product and packaging work in a real store environment with real customers. Don't encourage Uncle Ron to pump up sales. You're not looking to falsely kill it on these 12 units; you want to know if you should roll out bigger. See if they fly off the shelves or at least sell themselves.
Go to the store and watch what people do in the aisle. Do they even notice your product? After someone buys one, talk to them about it and ask why they bought it. It's all about learning.
If the units sell, you can make a small run of several hundred or a thousand. If they don't sell, then you have a problem. If you can't sell 12, you probably won't sell a production run. Sell what sells. It makes life much more comfortable.
I once filmed a tiny little infomercial in my home. It cost me about $2400. Then I bought 10 ads on a cable channel. They cost about $250 each. I put less than $5,000 in, and when we aired, I sold $16,000 of product. That's a better than 6:1 return. Meaning that for each ad dollar I spent I got back $6. Awesome. I went on to sell over a million units of that product.
You can make a cheesy ad, hire a phone-service to accept the orders or set up a website to take the orders and go for it. You'll find out quick if people like your invention enough to pay for it.
Want to do it on the cheap? Film it yourself. Make a Shopify site with PayPal button. Pay for Facebook ads and go. If people buy, you're in business. Money/orders are a great way to tell if people like your idea.
Those are my 7 favorite way to sell if an idea has the chops to succeed.
There are other ways to test your ideas like tradeshows, market surveys, etc, but these are a good start. If you have any favorites, please, post in the comments. And subscribe to my list so we can speak again. I want to hear from you!
