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Will It Fly? How to Test Your Next Business Idea So You Don't Waste Your Time and Money, by Pat Flynn
I HAVE read a number of quality books on the issues to be probed, the questions to asked and the considerations to be made before starting a new venture, written for astute business people with experience.
As such, they all lacked one element: empathy with first-time, would-be entrepreneurs. This book fills that lack, and as such is an important contribution.
The author, Pat Flynn, is not yet another founder of a “Unicorn”, a company worth over a billion dollars, sharing his insights on how to start another Tesla, Facebook or PayPal. Rather, he is a young, married father of two, who lost his job in the downturn and became an entrepreneur.
His book is down to earth, his examples folksy and his insights sound. He provides a step-by-step guide to ascertaining if the business you are thinking of starting “will fly”. There are exercises for every step, and they will provide important insight into your new business idea.
You will need to invest some time and effort in this preliminary process, but it certainly beats losing money, losing face, and losing credibility; those inevitably follow from not checking if your idea has potential.
The first section is the first step you should take as you think about your new business. This section is entitled Mission Design, and poses the starting question everyone should ask - will starting this business allow me to be the person I wish to be? This smacks of the question a counsellor might ask, which many would answer with: "I need money right now, and I will have plenty of time to worry about the quality of life when I cruise the Mediterranean on my yacht".
“If you don’t have a passion for what you are doing, your energy will eventually fizzle out. It always does,” Flynn notes.
Entrepreneurs’ earnings will be closely related to how much they care about the people they are serving, and the services they offer.
Will it accord you the lifestyle you want, the relationships you value, and self-fulfilment that is lasting? Remember, you haven’t invested one cent in this business so far and if it just isn’t you, then you are well advised to keep looking for something that is. After all, as Flynn asserts, “a successful entrepreneur is one who is both successful in business and in life”.
The next step is “Flight Planning”. Besides knowing where they want to go to, pilots have to determine the best way to get there safely, comfortably, and on time. “NASA has never launched a mission just because it sounded like a good idea, and neither should you,” Flynn writes.
This section is your market research, and the exercises Flynn recommends can easily be adapted to any market you wish to serve.
This will take you some time, but the tools and the guidance are all in the book. There really is no hurry to get started right away, as futurist Joel Barker says: “Speed is only useful if you’re running in the right direction.”
As part of your Flight Planning, you will want to uncover important information about your ideas that you have not even thought about. In this phase you need to assess the current conditions of the market you are aiming at, see who is already there, and what and who you are up against.
You will also be able to identify the part of the market you are best able to service, and the best way to target this. (Hint: how are the successful in this market targeting it? How are the less successful targeting it?)
If there are already others in the arena you wish to enter, you have an advantage over everyone else who is already there. You have a live laboratory of what is missing, which is critical because it suggests opportunities that exist.
Riches in the niches
Flynn provides guidance through a few targeted exercises to identify the dissatisfaction and struggles your target customers experience. This will enable you to enter the market and serve it better than the incumbents. Focusing on a small market is a much underestimated advantage – there are riches in the niches.
You need to keep this image in mind (and make the translation to your product or service). If you are a musician with a thousand true fans, they will purchase anything and everything you can produce. “…they’ll drive hundreds of miles to watch your next gig. They read every post, watch every video, and listen to every word of your podcast because it’s a part of their daily ritual. They are the ones who have truly fallen in love with what you have to offer the world, and will always be there to support you.”
After you have completed the Flight Plan, it is time to enter the Flight Simulator. Here you can amalgamate what you have discovered in your research and begin the process of validating and trying your ideas on a small, safe segment of the market you are targeting.
This activity of validating alone will distinguish you from most entrepreneurs, who never take the trouble to go through this stage with real customers. With Flynn to guide you, you will attempt to make your initial sales to this small, safe, segment of the market. Real validation! Going big and loud with the wrong offer has caused harm many entrepreneurs never recover from.
If you haven’t taken any meaningful action towards your new venture because you don’t know where to start, or what process you need to follow, you are not alone. No one wants to let themselves or others down. But as John F Kennedy once said, “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long range risks of comfortable inaction.”
I like the light tone of this book - it is an easy read, neither preachy nor academic, and very practical. The exercises are easily accomplished, with less effort and more pleasure than you expect.
Readability: Light +---- Serious
Insights: High --+-- Low
Practical: High +---- Low
* Ian Mann of Gateways consults internationally on leadership and strategy and is the author of Strategy that Works. Views expressed are his own.
