5 Qualities That Must Distinguish Your Next Business Initiative

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5 Qualities That Must Distinguish Your Next Business Initiative

By Martin Zwilling | Inc Magazine | June 16, 2024

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Every business founder wishes that he could predict whether his idea could be the “next big thing,” before he spent his life savings and years of energy on it. Investors, on the other hand, typically don’t even look very hard at the product or service but prefer to evaluate first the business owner, and secondly the business plan, before really looking at the solution.

Product ideas must be assessed against the following five key qualities:

1. Depth. A deep product or service has a robust set of features. It means you’ve anticipated what your customers will need as they move up the power curve, For example, Google is a one-stop source for your online needs, ranging from simple search to managing your e-mail, to analyzing your Web site. The selection is incredibly deep. 
2. Intelligence. An intelligent solution solves people’s problems in smart ways. Smart solutions are the ones that look simple in retrospect, don’t require a genius with an instruction manual to use them, and the benefits are easily quantified. In the computer world, the advent of the mouse for interface control and selection was such a product.
3. Completeness. A complete solution provides a great experience that includes service, support, and a string of enhancements. For example, the Lexus experience is more than the steel, leather, glass, and rubber. After-sales support, comfort, accessories, and brand image are as much a part of owning a Lexus as the car itself.
4. Empowering ability. An empowering solution enables you to do old things better and to do new things you couldn’t do at all. It increases your confidence and your ability to control your life. This feeling of empowerment is the essence of why young people love their smartphones and often consider their phone an extension of themselves.
5. Elegance.  An elegant solution is not opulent but embodies creativity and polish, and enhances the user experience. An elegant solution works with people. An inelegant solution fights people. It looks right. It feels right. It works right. And it doesn’t make more work for you. This may be hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

The best product or service is a full-featured one (deep) that shows you understand customer needs (intelligent), comes with support (complete), makes customers better (empowering), and is easy to use (elegant). As you create your solutions, ask yourself if they are deep, intelligent, complete, empowering, and elegant. 

Of course, great startup solutions need an alignment with personal values and a track record to give you credibility. 

3 key takeaways from the article

1. Every business founder wishes that he could predict whether his idea could be the “next big thing,” before he spent his life savings and years of energy on it. Investors, on the other hand, typically don’t even look very hard at the product or service but prefer to evaluate first the business owner, and secondly the business plan, before really looking at the solution.
2. The best product or service is a full-featured one (deep) that shows you understand customer needs (intelligent), comes with support (complete), makes customers better (empowering), and is easy to use (elegant). As you create your solutions, ask yourself if they are deep, intelligent, complete, empowering, and elegant. 
3. Of course, great startup solutions need an alignment with personal values and a track record to give you credibility. 

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Topics:  Creativity, Startups, Entrepreneurship, New product