How do I approach a business with an idea?

Hello, I will provide you feedback but know that is generally frowned upon to use this platform where people come with real frustrations and hurdles and use it for advertisement. You website has a lot of flaw, granted is a landing page, and it could be greatly improved. Quora is great not only because they have the work to gather the community of experts and non experts on an open platform where questions, surveys,etc can be shared by individuals and companies alike. They provide their features for free and requires no log in to view what is going on. Yours seems to a landing asking for contact information but you failed to provide examples or video or anything that explains easily in 1-3 seconds what it is that you are and why you want my email and how would I benefit from giving it to you. With that said, the idea of providing a niche for PHD students is cool and I can see that needed, as we go through higher education our tutoring resources become less and less available. I would however try to be everything to everyone - focus on one core value to one core group of people - reason: You don't have the time and money to expose and cater to everyone. Consider doing research in other websites with similar services like chegg.com Also, there is a class I took through onemnth here http://mbsy.co/onemonth/18573440 - it shows you how to build landing pages more effectively. best of luck :) Humberto Valle

Hello! This is a great question, alimena many new self-employed or entrepreneurs face. When I started consulting 10 years ago i started mentoring people in this exact situation - you know you're good, but you feel like your skillsets are diverse and you obviously want to do something productive that generates steady income thus you're unsure as to what path to follow. If this goes un-addressed for too long you'll see years pass by w/no fruitful effort. My background is in strategic marketing - here are my thoughts for you: First, try coupling your skillsets to a certain industry such as marketing, pr, sales, technology, etc. Are you capable of creating the logos or imagery you propose to someone? Second, based on whether you can deliver and the industry that best suits you - understand your would be role in the current eco-system. For example I would place your interest into marketing but you see, a logo does not make a brand, a slogan requires clever pitching to be accepted at once, and clever repetition to the audience for it to stick and become a slogan or part of the brand. Why would a company go to a consultant who cannot deliver campaigns but only create words on microsoft or sketch a logo but not create it? Even a graphic artist must go through dozens of variations of the same 'finished' logo before one gets accepted and thats because a miniscule detail makes a huge difference to a client. So a sketch is close to delivering nothing. Consulting can be a good gig, but you must understand what consulting is - is not just speaking, unless you're amazing public speaker and jargonist. No, sustainable consulting delivers a product in the form of research, theories, thesis, manages others implementing the effort, works side by side the teams they are hired by. So this means that even for logo and branding consulting you must be perceived as an expert in your field, have experts who like you as a human and respect you as a professional. Specially if you want to simply create verbal content and not tangible brand assets. With that said, on the other hand, let's say that you are able to deliver tangible assets to a company client. Good for you, now lets understand your role in the current eco-system as follows: You are either a disruptor, traditionalist, softserver, specialist, connector or a soloist. Now, is important that you don't get played by your ego - none of these is above another and even through the distruptor classisification might be of your liking it doesn't mean that you are - you, to me, sound like would fit under the soloist. A distruptor is someone with ton of experiences and abilities to bring all others together under one roof service and deliver a hybrid company - I have done that with Unthink, a hybrid marketing agency that caters to small and new business owners who need high budget services on monthly payments and have gathered expert professionals to work under my model and not traditional lump sum plans for traditional and digital marketing and advertising. A traditionalist are becoming irrelevant and depend heavily on relations and past authorities in a field. For newcomers this is obviously out of the question and a dying competitive strategy. Specialists, you could be here, focus heavily and depend on NICHE markets only. These individuals can charge a premium because they offer a single solution to any client and deliver it well because they understand it backwards and inside out. These people are constantly improving, reading, learning and networking and have a pitch crafted down to the T. They depend heavily on connections obviously and patience for their connections to need their services. Connectors, are networkers, not doers. - you could be here too. They make the connections and hire or subcontract others who can serve. Soloists are common - these are web devs, programmers, graphic artists, solo-business owners - who have modest growth goals, low cost of living and thus can comfortably build connections and offer a small variety of services which once sold they create and deliver themselves. (if you know graphic design you would be here) These people are not looking to build an agency right off the bat or at all, instead just make a good living doing something they love either as main provider or as a contractor or sub-contractor to clients directly or other companies. I hope my answer helps you figure out what type of business to start, I cannot give you a direct response because that is a loaded question which answer depends heavily on things only you know. If you would like to chat a bit more give me a call, message me, or google me. Right now, we currently added a yelp account, if you feel like my answer helped me I would invite you to leave a yelp review for me in return :) https://www.yelp.com/biz/unthink-marketing-avondale

You've been doing all the right things, so you're on the right track. Not sure what you mean by, "launch the idea" though. You can't start selling it until you have an MVP (Minimum viable product), and it doesn't sound like you do. Your next steps are to make an MVP and deploy it to people with the appropriate personas you identified in your previous user research. Your MVP, and defined personas will most likely be iterated as you do subsequent testing, that's normal. In order to get people to test out your MVP you don't necessarily need a website or promotional video, but they may help in the recruitment of testers if needed. Nobody other than the people you solicit as testers are going to see the website, so don't worry about that. You don't have to be very secretive, but if you want to be cautious, you can ask if anyone wants to test your MVP (on forums, etc.), and describe it in general terms (i.e. just describe the problem it solves, and maybe generally how). Then for all the people that are interested you can give them the details and show them the device (or whatever it is) and see if they're still interested. You should have all your solicited testers fill out pre- and post- questionnaires which will help you quantify optimal personas, the functionality of your product, approximate price people might pay for it, etc. I've done many of these myself, and also helped lots of other people design them, analyze the results, and iterate their MVP based on the results. Let me know if you'd like any help, or if you have any questions relative to the specifics of your product. best of luck, Lee

I'd suggest doing three things to narrow down the field: 1.Try to sketch the business model for the startup idea http://businessmodelgeneration.com/canvas 2.Get good at doing quick and dirty market sizing of opportunities 3.Check if you are passionate enough about the idea to potentially spend the next 5-8 years of your life in making it successful Based on a collective evaluation of the above three, you might be able to zero in on a few ideas to investigate further (e.g. building a prototype, customer development, etc.)

Hi First of all, the fact that you are talking about market validation is great. I've seen so many startups invest time and money, only to find that no ones wants/needs their product, or that they only want a certain aspect of it, or they aren't willing to pay the requested price. So you're already one step ahead. Answer: the sooner you validate your product, the better! That said, the version you are validating needs to be representative of the end product, or else the validation isn't reliable. So in your case, I would: 1. create a business model canvas (which is what all startups should start with before creating a business plan), 2. Setup a Wix or Wordpress website (this can be done for free / very low costs). On the website, include the price of the product, and enable people to order it (even if it doesn't exist!). I am happy to explain how this can be done even though you don't yet have the final product and by still being fair to the people who click the "buy/order" button. 3. Spend a small amount (say $100 - but depends on your budget) validating the idea. This way, after only spending a very small amount, you will be able to know (if done right): a. Do people like your product. b. Do people want/need your product (not the same as 'a'). c. Are people willing to pay for your product? d. How much are they willing to pay? (you can check this by having 2 landing pages for payment - each with a different price). I'm happy to help you with this matter further, as this is a critical stage. Best of luck!