Turn ideas into reality (Part 1)

Now you’ve got the right appearance (see Appearance in business), you’ll need to turn your idea into reality. This can be tricky depending on what you’re planning on taking to market but ultimately you should start with four things:

• Market research
• Protection
• Identify the right finance options
• Next steps

Market research

At this early stage it’s simply not good enough using a search engine to find alternatives to your idea which should fit into one of two categories:

• Product
• Service

As a start up you will be fairly flexible so you must establish market need, size and competition without forgetting social research. Gathering opinions is a powerful resource which will enable you to create a powerful marketing campaign and will be the foundations of your business plan. Protection also forms a part of your market research which we’ll talk about below.

Protection

Whether you want to licence your intellectual property out to an established business in return for royalties whilst you sit back and enjoy the sun or tackle it on your own, you must protect your idea. Without this you have no right to sell your idea or negotiate any form of exclusivity.

You should start by having a look around Espacenet or the IPSUM service provided by the UK Intellectual Property Office as part of your market research. If you infringe another patent, you could be liable to lose all your profit. If you’re unsure about how to use these services, contact a regulated attorney to carry out a search for a small fee.

It’s also a great benefit to be knowledgeable about the sector you’re starting up in as this will lower the overall cost of a patent which can be a fairly expensive process. Patents usually take 2 – 3 years until they are published but after making the initial application, you can start printing patent-pending on your product. The process varies considerably from country to country and there are multiple ways you can file an application which we’ll cover at a later date, otherwise ask an attorney.

Identify the right finance options

Once you’ve completed your research, you can now start writing a business plan which we’ll cover shortly.

Jump straight to the cash flow sheet and start finding out how much it will cost to rent a unit or kit out your garage, including the insurance, legal, accountancy fees, utilities and taxes to name a few. Don’t worry about calculating the sales side of things just yet. If you find that the costs keep rising and rising, then there are four different types of finance packages available to help you out.

• Investment
• Crowdfunding
• Loans
• Grants

Investments

There are many advantages of securing investment and commitment in return for share as you wont have to pay any interest on the money they bring in. However, you wont be able to do this if you’re a sole trader. The disadvantages are that you’ll own less of your business and the whole process can be very expensive and time consuming to pursue as you’ll require legal assistance.

Crowdfunding

Crowdfunding is a very quick way of raising finance for your business as well as boosting business awareness but you’ll be exposing your idea which can be dangerous if you’ve not protected it. There are many different platforms available with various terms. Just make sure that they are regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority.

Loans

Unless you can guarantee the repayment, it is best to avoid loans at this stage as it brings risk and a significant increase in liability.

Grants

There are many grants available from the government, European Union, local councils and charities. You don’t lose share of your business and you never need to pay it back. The only downside is that there is a lot of competition in this area and the application process can take a very long time. You can also approach university innovation programs as they’ll be able to help you out.

Next steps

So you’ve got an idea, research to back it up, a long list of costs in your cash flow sheet and a good search report. Now you can start approaching people to see if their finance packages are good enough for you to protect your idea and get it off the ground. Just make sure you carry around plenty of non-disclosure agreements (NDA) which will temporarily protect you in case you have to go into detail.

Thanks for reading and if you’d like to contact QUICKTOBUSINESS please email quicktobusiness@post.com. Check back soon for Part 2.

Quote of the day

Hell, there are no rules here – we’re trying to accomplish something.

– Thomas A. Edison