Tuesday, April 30, 2013

How Entrepreneurs Come Up With Great Ideas

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How Entrepreneurs Come Up With Great Ideas

There is no magic formula. But that doesn't mean there's no formula at all.


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At the heart of any successful business is a great idea. Some seem so simple we wonder why nobody thought of them before. Others are so revolutionary we wonder how anybody could've thought of them at all.

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Engineering grads of 2013 earn far higher salaries on average than the typical new college graduate. Lauren Weber reports. Photo: Getty Images.
But those great ideas don't come on command. And that leaves lots of would-be entrepreneurs asking the same question: How did everybody else get inspiration to strike—and how can we work the same magic?
To find out, we turned to the experts—the startup mentors who discuss launching businesses at our Accelerators blog, as well as other investors, advisers and professors who have seen and heard countless success stories, and entrepreneurs who have written success stories of their own. They saw inspiration coming from all sorts of sources—everyday puzzles, driving passions and the subconscious mind.
Here's what they had to say.
Look at What's Bugging You
Ideas for startups often begin with a problem that needs to be solved. And they don't usually come while you're sitting around sipping coffee and contemplating life. They tend to reveal themselves while you're hard at work on something else.
For instance, one company of mine, earFeeder, came about because I wanted news on music I loved and found it hard to get. So I created a service that checks your computer for the music you have stored there, then feeds you news from the Internet about those bands, along with ticket deals and other things.
David Cohen 
Founder and CEO, TechStars
***
You're Never Too Old
Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Paul Allen and Bill Gates with Microsoft, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with Apple —those success stories lead some people to think that coming up with big ideas is a young person's game. But the tech entrepreneurs who rose to early fame and fortune are just the outliers. The typical entrepreneur is a middle-aged professional who learns about a market need and starts a company with his own savings.
Research that my team completed in 2009 determined that the average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are aged over 50 as under 25, and twice as many over 60 as under 20.
Vivek Wadhwa 
Vice president of academics and innovation, Singularity University
***
Be Present in Life
Start your brainstorming with problems that you are personally invested in. Building a business is hard as hell and takes the kind of relentless dedication that comes from personal passion.
Clockwise from the top left: Xerox; Associated Press; Bloomberg News; Chipotle Mexican Grill
The next big question is "How?" Great ideas and innovations come from executing on your idea in a different way than everybody else is attacking it, if they're attacking it at all. A great way to do this is to look outside of your industry to see how others are solving problems. Approaches that they think are routine might be out of the ordinary for you—and inspire great ideas.
Also, most businesspeople tend to ignore our creative side until we really need it. Making sure that your life has a balance of the arts is a great way to stay engaged creatively.
This last tip will seem insanely obvious. However, in the world we live in, it's easier said than done: Simply be present in life.
I'm sure you can relate to how overconnected we all are. Something as simple as having a cup of coffee becomes a juggling act of replying to emails and managing schedules. It's easy to miss a potential piece to your innovation puzzle when it's right under your nose if you aren't there.
Angela Benton 
Founder and CEO, NewME Accelerator
***
Ideas Are Abundant; Drive Isn't
Perhaps the greatest factor that determines whether or not an entrepreneur will be successful isn't the business idea itself, but rather the entrepreneur's willingness to try (and keep trying) to turn the idea into reality. Great ideas are abundant, but it's what we decide to do with them that counts.
Samer Kurdi 
Chairman of the global board, Entrepreneurs' Organization
***
Let Your Subconscious Do the Work
When the mind is occupied with a monotonous task, it can stimulate the subconscious into a eureka moment. That's what happened to me. The business model for my company, ClearFit, which provides an easy way for companies to find employees and predict job fit, hatched in the back of my mind while I was driving 80 miles an hour, not thinking about work at all.
The subconscious mind runs in the background, silently affecting the outcome of many thoughts. So, take a break and smell the flowers, because while you're out doing that, your mind may very well solve the problem that you are trying to solve or spark a solution to a problem you hadn't considered before.
Ben Baldwin 
Co-founder and CEO, ClearFit
***
Attack Practical Problems
Make a note whenever you encounter a service or a customer experience that frustrates you, or wish you had a product that met your needs that you can't find anywhere. Then ask yourself, is this a problem I could solve? And how much time and money would it take to test my idea?
That last point is crucial. As my sage Stanford professor Andy Rachleff encouraged me, "Make sure you can fail fast and cheaply." In business school, I had a couple of big ideas. One was improving domestic airline service—which would have cost millions and taken years. I decided to pursue another opportunity that was a lot cheaper and would show results faster—a clothing line called Bonobos.
In the end, it took me just nine months and $15,000 of startup funds to get a little traction and market feedback.
Brian Spaly 
Founder and CEO, Trunk Club
***
Head Into the Weird Places
For entrepreneurs to stretch their brains, they should seek out the unusual.
Watch and listen to weird stuff. I enjoy watching obscure documentaries and listening to unusual podcasts. It's thrilling to find cool ideas lurking just a few clicks away.
Walk in weird places. I take walks in hidden suburban neighborhoods, department stores, community colleges. When you're walking with no purpose but walking, you see things in fresh ways, because you have the luxury of being in the present.
Talk to weird people. Striking up conversations with people who are different from you can be powerful. I still remember random conversations with strangers from decades ago, and how they shaped me.
Victor W. Hwang 
Co-founder, CEO and managing director, T2 Venture Capital
***
Search for a Better Way
As one goes about their daily life, it is useful if they routinely ask themselves, "Isn't there a better way?" You would be surprised at how frequently the answer is, "Yes." Other sources of inspiration for me are existing products. One should never feel that just because there is a product out there similar to yours that you can't execute it and market it better.
Liz Lange 
Fashion designer
***
Think Big
There are several factors an entrepreneur should consider when choosing a business idea or opportunity.
Go big or go home: There are opportunities to make money by building businesses that marginally improve on existing products or services, but the real thrill sets in when the decision is made to go after an enormous idea that seems slightly crazy.
Make the world a better place: The best kind of entrepreneur pursues a business that simplifies or improves the lives of many people. He or she repeatedly asks "what if" when thinking about how the world works and how the status quo could be dramatically improved.
Fail fast: As overall startup costs decline and markets move much more quickly, it has become easier to test ideas without devastating consequences of failure.
Pivot quickly: Many of the most successful companies exist in a form that is entirely different from how they were first envisioned. A successful entrepreneur will realize when a company is moving in the wrong direction or is missing a much larger opportunity.
Kevin Colleran 
Venture partner, General Catalyst Partners
***
Taking It to Market
It is important to look at an idea in two ways: first, to consider the initial inspiration for the business, and second, the often very different concept that ends up being executed to create the new company. We typically think of these ideas as the thing that sets these great entrepreneurs on the path of success. However, an idea is only that until you do something with it. Great entrepreneurs also discover the strategies to deliver the new innovative solution to the market.
Ellen Rudnick 
Clinical professor of entrepreneurship and executive director of the Michael P. Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business
***
Listen to People Who Know
Entrepreneurs come up with great ideas in a number of ways. Here are some of the best.
Get customer feedback: Listen to customers and create products and services that give them more of what they like and/or remove what they dislike.
Listen to front-line employees: The workers who manufacture the widgets, interact with customers and so on see what takes too long to accomplish, what is too expensive, what causes problems. Talk to those workers, or even do those jobs yourself.
Reverse assumptions: Many great entrepreneurs come up with ideas by reversing assumptions. For example, the old assumption was that a bank needed to have tellers and branch locations. The ATM concept asked: How can we offer banking services without having a branch location and tellers?
Dave Lavinsky 
Co-founder and president, Growthink Inc.
***
Get Inspired by History
You often hear about the pursuit of the new new thing. But I believe entrepreneurs have a lot to gain by looking into history for inspiration.
In the mid-'90s, some beer enthusiasts and experts called us heretics for brewing beers with ingredients outside of the "traditional" water, yeast, hops and barley. So, I started researching ancient brewing cultures and learned that long ago, brewers in every corner of the world made beer with whatever was beautiful and natural and grew beneath the ground they lived on.
We now make a whole series of Ancient Ales inspired by historic and molecular evidence found in tombs and dig sites.
Sam Calagione 
Founder and president, Dogfish Head Craft Brewery Inc.
***
Be Prepared to Shift Gears
Entrepreneurs need to understand two things. For one thing, their first (or second or third) idea is often not the real opportunity. In fact, it might stink. They have to be on the lookout for why it stinks and be willing to shift course.
But they also need to understand that even if their idea has problems, there's often a good opportunity buried within it. They need to talk to people and continue tweaking and transforming it. In the process, they encounter setbacks, rethink their approach, try again and redefine what they're doing.
For all that, the idea may fail—it's happened to many successful entrepreneurs. But they weren't deterred by failure. They kept at it and were better positioned to recognize and shape the next idea into something truly great.
Donna Kelley 
Associate professor of entrepreneurship and Frederic C. Hamilton chair of free enterprise, Babson College
***
You Can't Rush the Brain
I don't know where great ideas come from. I am not sure anyone does. I am not even sure how I come up with my ideas. The brain does its thing, and out pops an idea.
While you are waiting for the brain to get its act together, do what you can do. Do the doable. Meet with people, schmooze, have a laugh or two. Build mock-ups and prototypes. At the very least, collect other people's problems. That's always a guaranteed doable.
The deep idea here is that action has a creative aspect distinct from thinking. And thinking need not come first. Mostly it doesn't.
Saras D. Sarasvathy 
Isidore Horween research associate professor of business administration, University of Virginia's Darden School of Business
***
What Not to Do
One thing that isn't a rich vein of entrepreneurship gold: reading a market forecast from a big-name consulting firm and deciding to create a product to serve that need.
Guy Kawasaki 
Author and former chief evangelist of Apple
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What's Best Way to Test a New Business Idea?

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 You've come up with what you think is a great idea. What's the best way to test it? The Wall Street Journal put this question to The Experts, an exclusive group of industry and thought leaders who engage in in-depth online discussions of topics from the print Report. This question relates to a recent article that discussed how many well known entrepreneurs came up with great ideas and formed the basis of a discussion in The Experts stream on Monday, April 29.
[image]Carl Wiens
The Experts will discuss topics raised in this month's Small Business Report and other Wall Street Journal Reports. Find The Experts online at WSJ.com/SmallBusinessReport.
Also be sure to watch two small business thought leaders—NYC Food Truck Association President David Weber (@DavidWeberNYC) and Harvard graduate and Flour Bakery + Cafe chef and owner Joanne Chang (@jbchang)—as they speak about getting your business idea off the ground in a Wall Street Journal interactive video chat that aired on Monday, April 29 at 3 p.m. EDT.
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James Schrager: Start Small and Study Up
A small-scale, real-world test is always the best way, and will be the No. 1 priority of many VCs (venture capitalists) when getting serious about an idea. Think of how Zuckerberg tested "The Facebook " in one evening at Harvard. It caught on like wildfire. A perfect, small-scale test. If you want to do a chain of restaurants, show me one restaurant where people stand in line to have dinner, such as Smoque, a fantastic place in the Chicago area (full disclosure: I love their roast beef). If you can't test, then show me analogues that have done very well. If you want to build the next high-performance sports car, show me everyone who has tried in the last 20 years. Know their case histories verbatim, why the deal worked or why they failed. Google is an example of something brand new, but it was tested accidentally when graduate students at Stanford commented that it was absolutely the best search engine available. Amazon couldn't be tested small—it needed scale to get started—but was similar to a mail-order apparel store without the catalog and with a much smaller opening gross margin. Those simple facts predicted that selling new books on the Web might not be wildly profitable and for many years, it wasn't. But that was another way to test—find what your new business is similar to, and use those yardsticks.
James Schrager is a clinical professor of entrepreneurship and strategic management at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business.
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Joanne Chang: Figure Out What Sells
For me a field test works best. I basically made everything that I wanted to sell at my bakery beforehand for friends and family and used them as guinea pigs to see what flew and what didn't. Everyone loves sweets and they love them even more when you are giving them away free. The key was, would they pay for it. After a few tastings people reached out to me and wanted to pay me to bake for their parties so I knew I was onto something.
Joanne Chang (@jbchang) is the owner of and chef at Flour Bakery + Café and Myers + Chang in Boston.
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Mary Liz Curtin: Do Research—and Don't Ask Friends and Family for Their Opinions
Whatever your idea is, start with research before you try to bring your idea to life. Go to trade shows, read trade magazines, scour the Web to learn all you can about the industry, potential customers and your competitors. Look at similar services, products or concepts and see how they are marketed, what prices they command and how they are distributed. After writing a business plan, if the idea still seems valid, a test market or beta test is fabulous if it is practical for your concept. You may find retailers who will carry the product to help you test it, target users to try your software…if it is possible to get it into the hands of people similar to those you target that is a great beginning.
Whatever you do, don't solicit your friends and family for their opinions. They love you (probably) and aren't likely to give you solid criticism, constructive help or valid opinions. Talk to successful entrepreneurs in your field or a similar one, ask potential customers and consider working with a development consultant, after carefully checking his or her references.
After you do the legwork, follow your instincts and decide how to proceed after the test.
Always remember that your first launch is only the beginning—you need a plan for the follow-up iterations, products or services that will keep your initial consumers engaged.
Mary Liz Curtin (@marylizcurtin) is the owner of Leon & Lulu, a 15,000-square-foot destination lifestyle store located in Metropolitan Detroit.
[image]Richard Duncan
Rich Duncan: Don't Reinvent the Wheel
Most of our ideas come from others in the same trade and industry. When we see what we like, we discuss as a team what may have worked for the other company and/or what didn't work. The idea is then adjusted and altered as needed to make it an even greater idea. When we are finally ready to implement the idea into our own company, it has, essentially, already been tested. By not wasting time to "recreate" the wheel, we grow our company by using the professional and networking relationships we've established with other companies. We want to think of ourselves as in the top five, if not top three in our industry and trade, and being able to spend more time on the ideas that we already see proving successful in other companies, we are able to grow our company to our goal.
Richard Duncan is the president of Rich Duncan Construction in Salem, Ore.
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Rosanne Haggerty: Don't Be Afraid of Failure
Just do it! So many entrepreneurs spend all of their time trying to avoid failure that they don't advance their fields. The key to daring new things is an evaluation process that lets you learn quickly and either fail fast or keep improving, minimizing the resources at risk and maximizing opportunities for learning.
I think one of the reasons institutions in particular spend so much time planning is that they want to zero out their risk by getting it right on the first try. Unfortunately, innovation doesn't work that way. If you study successful innovators, you learn pretty quickly that there is no such thing as "getting it right." The problems we're responding to are constantly evolving, and our solutions have to evolve with them. Attempts that miss the mark can be powerful data sources to inform future design iterations.
This willingness to risk failure in pursuit of a breakthrough can feel especially scary in the social sector, where fundraising anxiety discourages honest conversations about how to move beyond existing models in search of better ones. Ironically, we've found that many funders long to have those conversations, and know all too well the limitations of playing it safe. At Community Solutions, risking failure within a controlled testing cycle is a critical part of our social problem-solving process. We've been inspired in this regard by a group called the Rapid Results Institute, with which we've collaborated on new models of rapid prototyping for the social sector. The Institute has taught us a lot about adjusting the ratios on the well-known "plan-do-study-act" cycle. The real breakthroughs almost always happen during the last three parts of the process, but most institutions spend all their time on the first part. Planning is important, but it is inherently limited to existing data. At some point, you've got to start experimenting if you want to create something new.
Rosanne Haggerty is the president and chief executive officer of Community Solutions, a not-for-profit organization whose mission is to strengthen communities to end homelessness.
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John Jordan: Get a Little Help from Your Friends
When I come up with a great idea, I like to play with it by bouncing it off friends that may have expertise in that area. I find that gathering anecdotal information and "gaming" it out with friends helps me improve the idea before I subject it to more rigorous traditional analysis. Seldom is an idea completed in its author's head in its first iteration. Idea generation is a process and almost always the product of several minds. The "playing with it" with the right friends is an invaluable part of transforming an insight into a workable business proposition.
John Jordan is chief executive officer of Sonoma County's Jordan Winery, a digital wine list entrepreneur and founder of the John Jordan Foundation.
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Sharon Hadary: Learn First, Then Start Talking
You've come up with what you think is a great idea. What's the best way to test it?
When you are enthusiastic about a new idea, it is almost irresistible to talk about it to anyone who will listen, solicit feedback and perhaps go as far as launching a few informal focus groups.
Successful entrepreneurs start by doing their research. Is anyone else doing something similar? If so, what would differentiate your idea and make it competitive? Has the idea been tried and failed? If so, why? What lessons can you learn from others' failures or successes? Learn as much as you can about the business model that other companies have had for similar products or services. How would can your idea transform the business model and make it more profitable?
Research the relevant industry or industries for your idea. Identify trends, quantify the potential market for the industry in general and then for the segment related to your idea. Identify gaps in the industry that your idea can address.
Now, you are ready to talk to industry experts, fellow entrepreneurs and potential customers about the product or service. From these sessions you will learn the characteristics of your market, who the decision maker for purchasing your product or service is, what changes would enhance the idea—from tweaking to total redesign, what you will have to do to create the market for the idea, and pricing considerations, including profit potential.
Having done all this, there is one last critical question to consider: Am I passionate enough about this idea to invest and sustain the energy, time and resources it will take to create a successful business?
Sharon Hadary (@hadaryco) is the founding and former executive director of the Center for Women's Business Research, an adjunct professor in the doctorate of management program at the University of Maryland University College and has co-written a new book, How Women Lead: The 8 Essential Strategies Successful Women Know.
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Karl Ulrich: Determining 'Purchase Intent' Is Crucial
First, understand that a great idea isn't a ticket to success.
Three factors determine how much value you'll create in pursuing your idea.
1. The quality of the raw idea,
2. Your skills and capabilities in developing the idea, and
3. The "weather"—the random and unpredictable elements that dog all innovation.
Although the quality of the idea is only one of three important factors, your choice of idea is the factor entirely under your control, so worth treating carefully.
Based on my empirical research, I believe the best single indicator of the quality of an idea is the fraction of consumers in your target market who say they will "definitely purchase" a product or service based on that idea. You can easily measure this "purchase intent" by running a survey with 20-100 consumers using an anonymous web-based poll offering five options (definitely would not buy, probably would not buy, may or may not buy, probably would buy and definitely would buy). You don't need to have refined the anticipated solution—simply describe in a few words the pain point and roughly how you envision solving it. Look for a strong majority who select the "top box."
The most successful innovators consider and test many ideas before committing their time to developing any one of them. In fact, a Web-based survey can easily accommodate 20 or more ideas at once. Testing many candidate ideas is good discipline, and one of the practices that really distinguishes experts from novices.
Karl Ulrich is vice dean of Innovation and CIBC professor of entrepreneurship and e-Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School.
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Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Click On The Ailment Get A Video Explanation



This site is very informative and worthwhile!
Which ever diseases you click-on
it gives you a video explanation!
Interactive Sites
For Medical Information
The tutorials listed below are
interactive health education resources from the 
Patient Education Institute.

Using animated graphics each tutorial explains a procedure or 
condition in easy-to-read language. You can also listen to the tutorial.
JUST CLICK ON A SPECIFIC AILMENT

NOTE: These tutorials require a special Flash plug-in,
version 6 or Above... If you do not have Flash, you will
be prompted to obtain a free download of the software
before you start the tutorial.
Surgery and reatment Procedures

Aorto-Bifemoral Bypass
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