Worcester Business Journal

22 Worcester Business Journal • June 22, 2015 www.wbjournal.com 385 South St., Shrewsbury, MA 01545 Chris@ProvoFinancial.com 508.842.0539 Office 508.842.0571 Fax 508.294.2004 Cell www.ProvoFinancial.com Securities offered through LPL Financial, member FINRA/SIPC. Investment Advice offered through Provo Wealth Management Group, a registered investment advisor. Provo Financial Services, Inc. and Provo Wealth Management Group are separate entities from LPL Financial. Provo Financial Services, Inc. voted best Financial Planning/ Investment Services Firm in central Massachusetts based on The Worcester Business Journal online polling. Awards W o r ce s t e r B us i n e s s J o u r n a l 2015 B E S T O F B U S I N E S S W o r ce s t e r B us i n e s s J o u r n a l 1992 - 2015 Celebrating 23 Years of Innovation Wealth Management is not only about where your money should go, but also where your money can take you. Christopher P. Provo RFC, CRPC ® President/CEO Do you know where your money is going? How would your donors and employees feel if they knew your endowment and your 403(b) plan invests in companies that CAUSE the problem your mission is trying to ELIMINATE? FOUNDATIONS What's In Your Endowment? 403(b) Plan? Transparent, Responsible Investing Does Not Always Require Giving Up A Competitive Rate of Return. To obtain a free foundation transparency test, or learn more about how you can align your investment choices with your mission, go to www.DonorTruth.com or email us at info@retirementplantruth.com. 4 When engaging in socially responsible investing strategies, the return may be lower than if the money manager or adviser made decisions based solely on investment considerations. No strategy assures success or protects against loss. The four tests that can take your idea from fantasy to reality A ll too often, entrepreneurs move quickly to spend precious resources that they don't have to launch a product they believe is perfect into a market they're convinced is huge. And they do this without doing much, if any, market research. It's kind of like "fire, ready, aim." But what should you do with that cool idea? Let's assume you have identified a problem, issue or challenge and come up with an idea you believe solves the problem or meets a need in the marketplace. This is a great start but it "does not a business make." Entrepreneurship is process; in fact, a series of processes that enable the entrepreneur to take an idea and build it into a real, sustainable business. You need to start with the creative process. What is it, and how does it relate to entrepreneurship? Entrepreneurial success involves innovation — in products, services, processes or distribution. Innovation has two key components: creativity and implementation. The latter can be further broken down into idea selection, development and commercialization. All three are equally important to build a successful business, but you must act on them in that order. This sounds simple to do, but it's difficult to execute. Entrepreneurs have lots of ideas. But before we start spending time and money toward implementation, we need to focus on the idea that we'll develop and commercialize. Which idea should we choose? Often, there are so many possible directions to go and many product alternatives or variations. Here's where the creative process can help us select the best idea or option. One needs to facilitate additional creative thinking, as well as apply critical thinking. If entrepreneurs rely solely on their own thinking, they too often are blinded to the real-world factors that can — and would — impact the right path on which to proceed. We need to apply a different lens, and that often means involving others. You involve others by hearing, seeing and discussing your ideas through their lens and from their experiences. You do this through brainstorming sessions, whiteboard discussions and early-stage market testing. This can be difficult when most entrepreneurs are so protective of their ideas. But often, this is the most important action to take in the real process of market research. But you may ask: What if someone steals my idea? At some point, you must start validating that your idea is sound, and that it's real. Get it out in the market, talk to prospective customers, get specific feedback on product features or pricing and gain better knowledge in the marketplace about such issues as size of market and most-valued benefits. Product ideas are easy to come up with; at any point in time, there are 10 other people in the world who have the same idea. But being an entrepreneur, you're going to take action: Test, test again, pivot, then test again before you develop and commercialize. How do we begin to verify or test that our idea is real? That we can build a company out of it? There are four qualities to test for as we define our business. Cast in the form of questions, they are: 1. Will the product attract customers? Does it generate interest? Are they interested in it, drawn to it? Does it really meet a need? Or is it just nice to have? 2. Does the product fit into the market window? Does it meet a market need now? That is, not too early or too late? 3. Does the product offer value to the customer, buyer or user? Does it create value? 4. Will this product have staying power in the marketplace? Is it just a fad? Or will it justify the resources required to build the company to support its growth? Validating your ideas to these four qualities markedly improves your chance of success. n Jeff Schiebe is an international advisor and educator in entrepreneurship and associated with Clark University, Babson College and Hult International Business School. Contact him at jeffschiebe@verizon.net. INSPIRATION AND INNOVATION BY JEFF SCHIEBE

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