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There are a ton of incredibly innovative, brilliant ideas out there that never become a reality.
There are a ton of not-so-extraordinary ideas that go on to make millions of dollars.
The Big Idea
What’s the difference? While there are many factors involved in the long-term success of a product or service idea (such as financing, the grit and determination of the mompreneur, etc.) let’s stay with the idea for now.
Ideas that solve real problems win.
It sounds simple enough but what does that really mean? The key word is “real.” And real is in the mind of the consumer, not the inventor. For example, imagine you’re a mompreneur who is an amateur tennis player. You’ve come up with this phenomenal idea for a new tennis racquet for beginning tennis players that replaces the nylon strings in most amateur racquets with a brand new material that improves performance, reduces injury, and increases durability.
These sound like great problems to solve, right?
The question is does the average new tennis player see these as problems? Amateur tennis players often buy their racquet based on which brand they know or on price. Even tennis experts recommend that amateurs focus on head size and length to maximize their early command of the ball.
To sell your new tennis racquets to beginning players, first you would have to convince them that they need to be worried about performance, injury, and durability. And then you’d need to compete with bigger brands on price.
It’s infinitely harder to create a market than to solve an existing problem.
A good place to start vetting your product idea is to ask yourself two questions:
Is there a better way?
Does anybody want and need a better way?
We’ll talk about creative (and inexpensive!) ways to determine the answer to the second question in the next post.
Next: Vetting the Big Idea
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