Will It Fly? - Book Summary

What can this chapter offer you? Prepare your entrepreneurial ideas for liftoff.

Imagine this: You are on the verge of launching your own business. You're fueled by an innovative idea, a seedling concept you yearn to cultivate into a flourishing enterprise. But more than the thrill of creation, you desire success; you aspire for your brainchild to take on wings, to defy the bonds of earthly constraints, and ascend toward the brilliant stars above.

However, before any idea can accelerate, before it can soar beyond mere dreams and take flight in reality, it first requires a successful launch — and that's precisely what this chapter is about.

From synchronizing your embryonic business vision with your personal ambitions to establishing a financially feasible blueprint, this chapter ensures your groundbreaking idea is well equipped for the journey ahead.

In this chapter, we'll delve into:

Identifying your unique strengths;

Understanding why, unless you're a food truck owner, setting up a food truck website may not be the best idea; and

Mastering the art of speaking your customers' language.

Building a successful venture means crafting a business in harmony with your lifestyle aspirations.

What takes priority for an aspiring entrepreneur keen on embarking on their business journey? Is it securing a healthy capital fund? Or perhaps designing sophisticated business cards? Surprisingly, the preliminary step dives a lot deeper; it requires the entrepreneur to scrutinize how their proposed venture will complement and enrich their intended lifestyle.

Before sculpting an idea into a thriving business, it's vital to affirm that it resonates with your beliefs and objectives. After all, your resources — time, vitality, money — are being invested in this project, and the more it mirrors your personal aspirations and principles, the greater fulfillment you will derive.

For instance, if you're innately sociable, ensure that your business's ethos and work environment reflects this trait, allowing you to cultivate this characteristic further.

But how can you guarantee that the decisions you make about your future enterprise will lead to contentment? A fascinating method is to embark on an interview with your future self.

Self-reflection is a powerful tool to identify which type of business is a perfect fit for you - and the process is straightforward:

Take a sheet of paper and partition it into four segments. Now, pinpoint the four most crucial aspects of your life. Your categories could encompass Family, Career, Well-being, and Finance.

Subsequently, allocate each of these categories to a separate quadrant on the paper. With that done, picture yourself five years into the future and pen down every detail that arises in your mind.

For instance, under the Finance category, you might write, "In five years, I envision my mortgage to be fully settled, investments in real estate made, a consistent income from rentals, and my children's college funds ready to go." If, during this introspection, you begin to doubt that your business idea may not be lucrative enough to realize this scenario, seize this moment to refine it. This preemptive action will save you from a potentially disillusioning revelation five years down the line.

While this conversation with the future might incite an eagerness to delve into your business, there's a few more personal aspects to acknowledge before affirming that your idea is an ideal match for you.

Prosperous entrepreneurs unearth their strong points by revisiting the past.

Is there a particular skill you excel in? If that's the case, it's imperative to harness that capability to your benefit! Your unique attributes and proficiencies carve out your competitive advantage, providing you a specialized foothold — in essence, an 'unfair advantage.'

An unfair advantage functions like your secret superpower, setting you apart from the competition. Hence, it should form a core component of any innovative idea. In fact, the simple awareness that you're particularly adept at a certain skill can spur your motivation.

Let's imagine you've been a yoga instructor for the past 15 years, and you've recently contemplated launching your own online yoga school. Over these years, you've accumulated extensive hands-on knowledge about diverse yoga forms and techniques. Naturally, you'd want this exclusive wisdom to be the cornerstone of your online establishment.

However, if your strengths aren't evidently conspicuous, you'll need to pinpoint them. A remarkable way to do this is by taking a trip down memory lane.

Examining your previous employment experiences and voluntary involvements, and reflecting on what appealed or displeased you about them can reveal telling patterns about your character. The author, for instance, previously worked in an architectural firm. He enjoyed his work as it was an everyday learning experience and involved tangible outputs; after completing a project, he could physically explore it.

Yet, he felt his monetary compensation didn't match his laborious efforts, and his creative suggestions often went unnoticed. Reflecting upon these experiences, it was evident that having the ability to influence outcomes was significantly important to him. Thus, stepping into the entrepreneurial world was a natural progression for him, as it allowed him to take full control, thereby leveraging his innate strengths.

Sketch out your concept and condense it to its fundamental core.

So far, you've embarked on a journey to the future, traveled back in time, and gained clarity on your life aspirations, along with some potential business ideas. Now, it's time to concentrate on fleshing out your business concept.

First, it would be beneficial to express your thoughts associated with your idea through a mind map — a potent visual tool for arranging your ideas coherently. This map could be formulated either on paper or electronically.

If you're more inclined towards pen-and-paper, sticky notes are an excellent choice as they can be easily repositioned and color-coded. Alternatively, if you're comfortable with digital methods, consider using an online mapping tool such as MindMeister which offers ease of relocating items.

And most importantly, don't overcomplicate things! The key is to ensure all your thoughts and ideas are captured. After all, creative thinking and editing are not simultaneous processes for our brains. Concentrate on letting your ideas flow freely for now.

The next step is to encapsulate your concept into a concise and coherent sentence that crystallizes its essence. While you've kept your analytical mind in standby mode during the ideation phase, it's now time to activate it. Begin editing by categorizing your mind map into various segments. Following this, draft around 400 to 500 words encompassing all these categories.

This activity will gear you into the rhythm of writing, and from this primary draft, you can whittle down to a brief paragraph of three to five sentences. Ensure to restrict it to this length and aim for simplicity to ensure potential customers or investors can easily comprehend it.

Finally, refine your idea into a singular sentence and don't hesitate to iterate it until you nail down the perfect version. For instance, a grocery retailer could delineate his website as offering "a vast variety of organic, raw vegan foods, complemented with superior customer service and assistance. The site also features a recipe blog brimming with concise, engaging instructional videos on cooking with the products available on the site."

Communicate your concept, invite feedback, and delve into your market.

At this point, your idea has been condensed into a format that's ready to be shared. But, before your business sets sail, it's critical to examine how it will be received in the real world.

The quality of your idea can be significantly enhanced by sharing it with others and learning from their feedback. In fact, even informal discussions during work or family gatherings can yield valuable feedback, helping to fine-tune your concept. However, it's equally important to engage in dialogues with potential customers.

For example, the author contemplated creating a website catered towards aspiring food truck owners and began reaching out to individuals already running such businesses. Upon contacting them, he was often asked if he himself owned a food truck, to which he would respond in the negative.

This experience compelled him to introspect his idea, questioning why someone would heed his advice if he didn't have firsthand experience in the field. Eventually, this led to a significant revamp of his initial idea, pivoting him towards assuming the role of a community curator for food truck owners.

The next phase involves understanding how your intended market currently functions and figuring out how to introduce a fresh perspective to it. An effective way to do this is through a market map.

Creating a market map simply requires a spreadsheet divided into pages labeled as places, people, and products. For instance, if your concept is an online yoga school, your market map would begin with places such as physical yoga studios and existing online platforms.

Next, make a list of individuals affiliated with these various platforms who you intend to connect with. These one-on-one interactions can spark meaningful relationships that may pave the way for potential collaborations. You might even wish to feature instructors from a particular platform on your online platform, and having established connections could facilitate this process.

Lastly, the products sheet should highlight the specific offerings you plan to provide — in this case, diverse yoga styles.

Uncover your audience's challenges and their language.

While research can provide a wealth of information about your prospective market, it's equally essential to understand how to tend to your clients' needs. After all, they will be the driving force behind your product's success.

To ensure this, it's helpful to craft a functional customer profile, also referred to as a Customer P.L.A.N. This tool is designed to help you correlate your business idea with your target audience's needs; the better you comprehend your customers in all their complexity, the more successful your business is likely to be.

Here's how you can create one:

The acronym P.L.A.N. stands for your customers' problems, language, anecdotes, and needs. To develop your P.L.A.N., add a new page to your spreadsheet, label it as P.L.A.N., and divide it into four columns, each corresponding to the categories mentioned above.

Firstly, focus on the 'P' in your P.L.A.N., signifying your customers' problems. Remember, if your product can solve a problem, people are likely to purchase it. Fortuitously, understanding your customers' issues isn't a tough task: all you need to do is initiate a conversation with them.

Start off by reaching out to the individuals listed in the 'people' section of your spreadsheet. Pose open-ended questions that can reveal potential problems. Questions like "what's the most challenging aspect of...?" or "which component of that task consumes the most time?" could prove to be insightful.

If personal interactions prove challenging and your efforts don't yield results, consider conducting an online survey. A pertinent question to include in the survey would be "what do you find most difficult about...?"

Having identified your customers' issues, it's time to decode their language. Understanding the way your customers communicate is akin to possessing the keys to reach out to your target audience.

One effective strategy is to scrutinize your customers' frustrations using the lens of language. Make a note of specific terminologies they employ to articulate their struggles, goals, and ambitions. Remember, mirroring your customers' language will foster trust quickly and make them more receptive to your future promotional endeavors.

With half your P.L.A.N. crafted, you're ready to explore the remaining two aspects.

Deepen your understanding by gathering customer narratives and recognizing their needs.

With a grasp on your audience's pain points and the language they use, it's time to delve into the stories that connect you to real-life experiences. Here's your guide:

Anecdotes, those small, engaging, or amusing stories, can offer insightful windows into the lives of your customers. Encouraging your customers to share these mini-stories can offer valuable insights, allowing you to align your idea with their lived experiences.

Consider this tale: Nick, an amateur angler, ventured out to try fly fishing for the first time and chronicled his exciting escapade online. After a couple of hours of traveling, he reached the designated fishing area. Before heading to the water, he stopped by the bait shop to seek recommendations for the best fishing spots.

An individual from the shop volunteered to guide him to a promising location. Once they started fishing, Nick was enthralled by the beautiful surroundings but was struggling with his casting technique. Observing Nick's struggle, a seasoned fly fisher offered some advice, which helped Nick improve dramatically.

If your product is tailored for novice fishermen, paying attention to such narratives can help you empathize with potential customers. These stories can make you cognizant of their difficulties, enabling you to create a product that caters to these challenges.

Finally, identifying your customers' needs will allow you to craft a product that perfectly fulfills them. But how can one define a 'need'?

In a nutshell, a need is an area in a customer's life that isn't functioning as smoothly as they'd want — and your responsibility is to propose a solution. For instance, during his research into fly fishing, the author noticed that anglers often lamented their inability to tie flies speedily. Conversations with customers revealed their intense frustration at missing out on catching other fish because of this.

Through this, he was able to discern two needs: enhancing fly tying techniques and facilitating easy access to flies. Once these needs were identified, he was well-positioned to brainstorm ideas to cater to them.

Savvy businesspersons test their potential customers and investors' dedication.

With your market research compiled and a Customer P.L.A.N. in place, you're on the brink of stepping ahead! Yet, before you propel forward, it's crucial to substantiate your idea - particularly on financial grounds.

Kickstart this process by gauging the level of commitment your product or service evokes among potential investors and customers. Various approaches can help with this.

Firstly, consider leveraging advertising platforms such as Google AdWords, Facebook, or Twitter, or any other sites frequented by your target audience. These sites generate real-time statistics, including the number of times your ads are clicked, which can offer an impression of the initial interest in your concept.

Another strategy to validate your idea involves penning guest blog posts on an open forum or group that resonates with your idea. This approach works wonders because when you offer engaging content without demanding anything in return, you enhance the platform's value and attract people's attention. Gradually, you can start showcasing your product or service on one of these platforms and gauge people's interest in investing.

The final validation technique is called hyper-targeting. This process helps ascertain the percentage of the market that might be intrigued by your solution. In essence, it entails asking your audience to affirm their interest or need for your product or service.

So, if you have been an active contributor to an online forum or group, simply ask a question like "who would be interested in..." Alternatively, if you have a website, consider encouraging viewers to click on a link or subscribe to a newsletter. This can offer a clue about the number of people who could be keen on your idea.

Moreover, you can implement this strategy via public speaking. In such scenarios, you can straightforwardly ask people to indicate (perhaps by raising their hands) whether your product could solve a problem they're grappling with.

The final confirmation comes from interacting with potential customers and requesting them to invest.

Assessing the devotion that people harbor towards your idea is crucial. However, it's not uncommon for individuals to show initial interest in an idea but refrain from purchasing the product later. Thus, a final round of validation is indispensable.

Initiate this by engaging with your potential customers and familiarizing them with your solution to ensure their willingness to purchase your product in the future. Ideally, aim for one-on-one interactions, which could be in person, via phone calls, through private messages, or even emails.

Regardless of your chosen communication medium, start by expressing an interest in your customer. Gradually steer the conversation towards the product you're hopeful they'll buy into. Share personal details and use anecdotes to elucidate why you wish to serve them.

However, remember to maintain honesty and clearly state that you're seeking their feedback. Ultimately, such feedback will reveal if a prospective customer appreciates your product and how probable they are to purchase it once it's available in the market.

Your ultimate validation arrives when you request pre-order payment. This could be facilitated through a link on your website or dispatched via an email that invites customers to pre-purchase your product. If employing email for this strategy, wait for 24 hours, and if you don't hear back, send a follow-up email to verify if your message was received.

But, you might wonder, how many pre-orders equate to a validated idea?

Everett Rogers, a renowned communications scholar, claims that just 2.5 percent of people would be willing to invest in a novel idea immediately. Naturally, you'd wish for the number of purchasers to increase over time, as interest in your product swells. However, Rogers suggests that receiving positive responses from 10 percent of your contacts is a reliable sign of success.

In essence, if out of 50 contacts, five commit financially, your idea has received validation. But, if you fail to hit that 10 percent mark, seek more feedback and continue refining your idea.

Concluding Thoughts

The essential takeaway from this book:

Many individuals are brimming with promising ideas, yet only a handful manage to convert them into flourishing businesses. The secrets to achieving this feat lie in robust market research, a clear comprehension of your customers' challenges, and meticulous financial validation of the final concept.