Back to the Drawing Board

Before this class I figured any intelligent idea can be spring boarded into a venture.  After time, thought and the teachings of the class, I realized I could not be more wrong.  I am by all means not discouraged by the requirements needed to successfully launch a venture, I feel much better equipped to handle the process.

I’d consider myself creative and coupled with my engineering degree, I could generally come up with a solution to most problems (marginal solutions but solutions none the less).  For a while I thought about taking a few gems to the next level but never put in as much thought as I have needed.  There have been two concepts that seem so trivial now that never had the right amount of thought before, initial investment/funding and return.  

With generally small inventions/solutions, I have always assumed I would invest the money myself instead of angels or venture capital but after analyzing the financials for the Gibal Tech project that my initial investments could be much greater than expected without return for quite some time.  On the other hand, none of my ideas can generate the amount of return quick enough to support the idea of venture capital or an angel.  Like I said earlier, they are small inventions and they generally have, at best, medium margins for profit….. I really wish one of the ideas was a snuggie 10 years ago (talk about low start up cost and huge margins).

So what if I got the capital needed to start one of these ideas? Out of probably 50 ideas I had walking into the first class, 2 have survived.   The rest have fallen to the rules of IP, potential customer base but mostly investment return and profitability.  Most ideas fell to the question, after 5 years of selling this, would it be relevant or would it be history?

Jon wrote in his blog that the idea generation is the hardest part of the venture process which I agree and disagree with. Coming up with an idea is easy, as I said, before this class I had handfuls of them.  Coming up with an idea that will survive the rules and guidance we learned in the class is difficult but without a cursory understanding of the concepts brought up in class the uncertainty will be too great.