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MenuI'm working on a potential business idea which I want to sell to Amazon. How can I approach them?
All infrastructure will be ready to execute soon.
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Why not grow it yourself? I'm sure you've heard of angel.co I'm sure you can find a good network there for investors connected to Amazon in many ways.
But if not, either way you put in a disadvantage if you are the one pitching for the sale. Look for investments instead and make firms bid for you, you never know if a company you haven't thought of or heard of sees value in your assets.
Best of luck.
Many large corporations have both Corporate Development departments and Venture Capital arms in order to handle opportunities to work with and/or acquire small companies. I'm not sure specifically how Amazon does this, and there is really no "standard" approach. Many companies have different venture groups under them with obscure names meant to sort of hide them from view. Otherwise many people would reach out directly and they would be swamped with deal flow that was not highly qualified.
Have you actually built anything or is it an idea only? I would say it's unlikely to attract their attention unless you have significant traction and you can clearly demonstrate how it fills a hole in their offerings or their portfolio, or that you are important to acquire so that a competitor does not acquire you first.
Most of the answer will depend on the details, I'm afraid.
Amazon does not buy ideas. Amazon acquires companies with proven results.
You will need to execute on your idea, gain traction with users, build revenue, and prove that it is a fit for Amazon. Then, they will come to *you.*
If you want to have the partnership conversation with them early in your product lifecycle, make sure you're already hitting targets that are aligned with them and can show that you will enhance Amazon's existing offerings in some major way.
Here are some they purchased outright:
imdb.com
woot.com
smallparts ( http://www.amazonsupply.com/)
quidsi
diapers.com
soap.com
pets.com
audible.com
createspace
fabric.com
lexcycle
dpreview.com
alexa
A9
lovefilm.com
zappos.com
cdnow
shelfari
buyvip
askville
snaptell
tastemakers
customflix
Mobipocket.com
Exchange.com
bookpages
And here are ones they made partial investments in:
LivingSocial (invested $175M between 2010-11)
drugstore.com (owned ~46% of company in 1999)
Songza
Animoto
Foodista
Bill Me Later
Wikia
delicious
Why not create it. Your exit strategy is to sell it. That's the basics...
When you are successful, companies looking to acquire your business will come looking for you. It may be amazon; it may not be amazon. You may fit amazon's future strategy or you may not. But either way you sold the business.
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How should you decide which business idea to pursue? How do I decide which direction to invest my energy in and how can I develop my idea further?
These are some great questions. As an entrepreneur, growing and scaling my business has been both a challenging and rewarding task. I'll answer both your questions separately: 1. How should you decide which business idea to pursue? Your decision should take into account both personal factors and should have regard to your environment, your market and your resources. From a personal perspective, choose an industry which (1) you are passionate about and (2) you have knowledge/experience in. This will considerably reduce your risk of failure. As a startup founder, you will find your job to be extremely challenging and the only way to succeed is through resilience. If you are not passionate, you will easily give up. Having the knowledge and expertise of your industry will not only give you more gravitas but also save you lots of time in research and understanding the wants and needs of your customer. From a larger perspective - ensure your business solves a problem that is large enough to build a profitable business out of. Here is a non-exhaustive list of questions to help you get there: 1. What is your intended customer base? It is harder to target a broad and general audience - try to establish a niche customer base which needs your products and/or services. 2. What problem does your service/product solve? Identifying a problem and providing a solution is the heart of every innovative idea. 3. How can you add value to the product and customer experience? Your customers need to gain benefit from purchasing your goods/services. 4. What are the most unusual characteristics of your business which will give you competitive advantage on the market? Establishing yourself in the market means you need some advantage over your competitors to attract their customers or new ones. 5. Have you researched your competition? In what ways do you feel you can do better than the competition? You need to know who are you facing to understand your market share, and how can you provide better solutions. 6. Do you have access to all the resources you need to launch the business? This includes funding, manpower, premises, equipment etc. 7. What is the size of the market? Do your research! 8. What would it take to create a minimum viable product and test it on the market? You don’t need a finished product to launch, start small and test your ideas. 9. What will it take to make profit? You need to have at least some estimated financial projections as to what you need to spend and what you need to earn in order to break even and then make a profit. 10. Is the problem you are trying to solve on the top priority list of the potential customers? Important consideration to see whether your products will sell. 11. What is your business model? How do you plan on charging your customers, how do your competitors do it, can you create additional revenue streams? 12. Is there a potential for growth? Think in the long term, can you scale the business further? 13. What are the possible roadblocks you are likely to face? You should attempt to find a solution for each problem you can think of. 14. Have you chosen a business name? Make sure that your name is descriptive of the branding and targets your customers. Ask people their input - choosing a name is an important matter as it will affect the rest of your branding. 15. Have you looked for your business name online? Ensure that no other business can be confused with yours. Ensure that the domain name and all social media accounts for your business name are available. I hope this answers your first question. 2. How do I decide which direction to invest my energy in and how can I develop my idea further? This will come to you much more clearly once you have found the answers to your first question. Ensure that you are spending your time in a way that produces results. Your first goal is to bring your MVP, to test it amongst customers, to learn from feedback and then to improve your product. Repeat this formula until you reach product market fit. I hope this helps - please don't hesitate to get on a call with me if you'd like to drill this down further.AI
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I'm starting a company this year, but I need a business idea. Preferably in the enterprise software space.
I wrote an answer to a similar question today which you can find here: https://clarity.fm/a/2877 The one flaw to your current process is this premise: "Whereas, if I focused on a good idea the whole process of driving success would be easier." This - from my experience - is simply not the case. I'm working on what I believe to be the best idea I've ever had and it has been absolutely the most challenging time I've ever had in a career full of product challenges. So a "good idea" does not make the process any easier. As I privately advised the person who asked the other similar question: I'd encourage you to define all your own pain points in your life and filter by most pain and also least addressed by existing solutions. Building what you know and what you're excited about building is the best that any of us can hope for. There's no path to greatness that isn't full of challenges ahead. Happy to do a call to discuss further.TW
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