In this session, we talk about the second stage of the Think Up phase which happens to be one of the three phases of business life. The stage is Ideation and today we deal with creating ideas that resonate with the marketplace. We also learn a way to evaluate an idea with the help of a series of questions or checklist.

For entrepreneurs, the challenge is not to generate ideas but it is related to having too many ideas. We need to understand, test and evaluate those ideas so that they resonate with the audience and the marketplace.

When we talk about evaluation, we need to deal with the following elements:

**Time**: The amount of time that you and others involved will take.
**People**: The people that are brought it so that you can eventually scale away from the things that aren’t your core.
**Money**: The sum of money that is required.

The Market is about knowing your:

**Customers**. Who are our customers?
**Market**. The size of the market matters.
**Access**. We also have to figure out the ways to access it.

The Outcomes are the things that are the result of the idea. Those outcomes should be related to:

**Profit**. There must be profit or cash follow to be sustainable
**Growth**. There should be potential for growth beyond a “one-hit”
**Lifestyle**. We need to know how it will impact our lifestyle

The Obstacles are the challenges that you need to navigate through because they stand in our way.

Alternatives. Are there other alternatives your customer may have?
Capabilities. What capabilities do we have to create or bring this idea to life?
Strengths. Is it part of our core strengths or competencies?

How to Evaluate an Idea?

If you download the guidebook of this session, you will have access to the checklist or questions. You can use them to evaluate an idea. The questions are subjective. The idea with stronger, clearer and certain answers are highly recommended. The idea that is lacking in terms of clarity in the checklist needs to be modified to increase the probability of success.