Once we had the pleasure of listening to a successful entrepreneur give a talk about how he made it, and how some of his friends who also started companies were faring. Long story short we got to talking about two good friends of his who had started companies years ago. One was now a very successful energy mogul, whereas the other one was still trying to get the idea he had all those years back off the ground, kept on funneling resources into it, he was undeniably unforgiving to his idea. How could his idea not work, after all he had thrown so much time money heart passion and soul into it? Simple answer, it just didn’t.

And when your entrepreneurial idea doesn’t work, the only thing to do is kill it, bury it and move onto the next one. If it doesn’t work, no big deal, the next one will, and if not that one, the one after that, and if not that one…. well… eventually something should hit. But people – they get overly attached to their ideas, they think that the one idea they have and devote resources to will change the world or something here, something there.

Most wont, and the best thing to do is to test it, launch it, if it doesn’t take off. Kill it. Your time is more valuable than the resources you’ll invest into bringing something inherently broken to market.

But how can you identify if your idea is a good idea other than that your friends, and family tell you it is? Follow these simple rules.

1. Does it satisfy a market need?
2. Is it scalable?
3. Who is my market?
4. What are my competitive competencies? Where do I excel?
6. Is my idea really that amazing? If not, it’s no big – more money gets thrown at mediocre ideas with great people than vice versa.

So before jumping into the fire, ask yourselves those few simple questions.

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