Tom Kalchik Ideas and Innovation: Creating ideas you can profit from.

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