Being a software engineer and a female, it’s hard to put my emotions aside when analyzing my business idea. I’m fortunate to be have a brain that loves programming and being a female, it’s hard not to be bias. It’s so easy to come to a conclusion that my business idea is great and fantastic because no one has developed something similar and if I build it, they will come! So what should I do to put my emotions aside and conduct a fair and unbiased analysis?
I turned to the stuff I learned in business school. Honestly, I was skeptical in the beginning because some of these models were created so many years ago, were they still relevant in today’s business world?Did the founders of google analyze in such great lengths when they were creating their search engine?
Oh boy, I was so wrong. These models made me think, flooded my mind with questions! They forced me to do real research, get real data that enabled me to write a reasonably accurate business plan. With a deeper understanding, the competitive strategies that I concocted were more realistic too! They were like the light beaming from the lighthouse, guiding me to draw my own conclusion about my business idea without any emotions involved!
These are my favorite models:
1) Generic strategies
2) Growth/share matrix
3) Porter’s 5 forces
4) SWOT
I was exactly the same way, I’ve only a week left at University and its only in the last few months that I realised the importance of these tools, they allow you to formalise your thinking and give you the opportunity to insert that creativity into your business plan. Innovation doesn’t just happen and requires real work and there is a good reason these tools are still taught – they work
[...] there are to take advantage of. I was of course wrong, these tools exist for a reason; they take the emotion out, they allow you to formalise your thinking and act as a personal devil’s advocate, so that [...]