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MenuNeed feedback on this idea - would you use it?
A service that connects you with remote guides that attend trade shows, business events etc on your behalf via live video calls.
Answers
Hi,
I think it is a great idea. There are many conferences I'd like to go to but can't because of time (and COVID obviously). Having a person to go for me is a good second place.
You should test the idea though before committing a lot of time and money. This can be done with existing apps to find customers, book time/guides and do the video call.
Feel free to give me a call and we can discuss further.
I specialise in helping founders get their ideas off the ground.
Kind regards
Stuart
Hi ! I agree I do think there is a need for it. Amazon has recently launched its "explorer platform " which is intended to provide the service for Virtual travel, visit , shopping etc... It is still in beta and does not target specific niche market . I have explored the idea and the business model. It it viable with strong potential. Happy to discuss further, feel free to give me a call.
All the best,
Alex
The idea may work for certain industries but in my experience and the hundreds of trade shows I have attended a large majority of exhibitors the information you truly desire is not visible to the typical attendee which is what this guide would be categorized to be. You need to be identified as one whom who is worthy of the best information or meeting with the right people. This would be a challenge, I do have some ideas on how to overcome this challenge as well as many others, give me a call and we can discuss.
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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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What are the best strategies to stop moving from one business idea to the next and start implementing one of them?
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.)MB
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I'm looking for advice on idea generation. I'm currently struggling on what type of business should I start?
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-avondaleHV
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How can a customer leave me feedback?
If you are talking about online feedback through a website, I'd suggest Feefo or Hotjar. There are plenty of other solutions, but those are really easy to set up. You could also factor in customer feedback requests into any email marketing you are doing and this kind of thing can be automated through all the major email service providers.SC
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