Tom Kalchik
Ideas and Innovation: Creating ideas you can
profit from
Ideas and Innovation: Creating ideas you can profit from
Tom Kalchik, Assoc. Dir.Michigan State University Product Center
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
MSU Product Center
What it is Structure
– Strategic Marketing Institute– Client Services– Innovation Academy
Process– Three phase model
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Intuition about Process First, can you tell a plausible “fairy
tale” about the idea of the venture?– Market/customer driven– Internally consistent and appealing
Then, can you reasonably make a profit from the venture if everything goes well?
Finally, can you “prove” to yourself and to others the venture’s potential to work (feasibility)?
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
What Is Needed to Launch a New Venture? What is a New Venture?
– A New Business or a New Product/Service The Key Elements
– An Innovative Idea– The Entrepreneurial Drive– The Resources to Go to Market
The Prerequisite for Success: A Business Plan that Puts the Key Elements Together!
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Entrepreneurship
is a way of thinking, reasoning, and acting that is opportunity obsessed, holistic in approach, and leadership balanced.
Habitual entrepreneurs – make a career out of starting businesses, some working within existing businesses and some in independent startups. All have in common finely honed skills in forging opportunity from uncertainty. (“The Entrepreneurial Mindset : Strategies for Continuously Creating Opportunity in an Age of Uncertainty,” Rita McGrath and Ian MacMillan, Harvard Business School Press, 2000)
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Month of March 6 workshops
throughout the State
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Agenda
What makes an idea unique, marketable and profitable?
Does the idea match what consumers want today?
What does it take to be an innovative entrepreneur?
How do you take a new and unique idea to market?
Are you ready to take the first step?
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
What makes an idea unique, marketable and profitable?
Differentiation Customer segmentation Supply chain issues Creating differentiated products Sources of differentiation Means of creating differentiation
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Creating Differentiation
Physical Change
Perceptual Change
Service Change
Supply Chain Change
Quality
Functionality
Form
Place
Time
Ease of Posession
MeansSource
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
X
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Does the idea match what consumers want today?
The Drivers – key functionalities– Wellness– Indulgence– Convenience– Value– Ethnicity– Demographics
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
What does it take to be an innovative entrepreneur?
Definition Inventory of ideas Paradoxes Myths and Realities Entrepreneurial test-self
assessment
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Who can be an entrepreneur? Anyone who wants to experience
the deep, dark canyons of uncertainty and ambiguity; and who wants to walk the breathtaking highlands of success. But caution, do not plan to walk the latter until you have experienced the former.
Quote from an entrepreneur
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Create your own inventory
of ideasNOW
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Paradoxes
An opportunity with no or very low potential can be an enormously big opportunity
To make money you have to first lose money
To create and build wealth one must relinquish wealth
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Technology Year Developed Years to Reach 25% of US Population
Household Electricity
1873
Telephone 1875
Automobile 1885
Airplane Travel 1903
Radio 1906
Television 1925
Videocassette Recorder 1952
Personal Computer
1975
Cellular Phone 1981
World Wide Web 1990
Source: Wall Street Journal
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Myths and Realities
Anyone can start a business– Must recognize difference between an
idea and an opportunity– Luck requires preparation– Easy to start– Hard to survive, sustain and build a
venture
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Myths and Realities
Entrepreneurs are gamblers– Successful entrepreneurs take careful,
calculated risks– Get other to share risks with them
Entrepreneurs want to run the whole show– High potential entrepreneurs build a
team, an organization, a company
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
How do you take a new and unique idea to market?
You’ve got the unique, marketable, innovative idea!
You’ve got the entrepreneurial drive! Now, how do you get the idea to
market– Gather the resources– Put them into action– The Prerequisite: A Business Plan
• A three-phase process!!!
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Are you ready to take the first step?
The Challenge Will the idea work? How do I get started? Working time with counselor
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
The Challenge You Face To systematically turn a business or
product idea into a real start-up or launch. Desire often overwhelms reason.
– The glory of the idea• “Build it and they will come.”• “Everyone will want it.”• “It’s the greatest thing since sliced bread.”
– Missing the logical flow of development• Operational detail before concept/strategy
development• Production before marketing• No consideration of the real return potential
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Results 336 participants Average of 23 years of business
experience Average of 14 years in current business Average of 62 miles traveled to attend Usefulness of program – 4.15 out to 5 Met expectations – 4.28 out of 5 Improved understanding – 4.13 out of 5 70 new projects started
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources
Future Program
More details on idea generation More information on business
planning
MSU Product Center for Agriculture and Natural Resources