You
should now perform a vital task that many inventors are too impatient to bother
with. That task is to pause and ask yourself: ‘Is there enough evidence to
justify taking my idea any further?'
This
matters for three reasons:
-
Even if
an idea is novel and appears to have market potential, that does not
automatically make it worth exploiting.
-
Up to
now, your idea should have cost you little. But if you decide to exploit it
commercially, the costs and risks will soon become much higher.
-
Thinking
about exploiting an idea is easy. Doing it is much more difficult. You will
therefore need to be confident of your
own skills and abilities before deciding to go ahead.
To help
you make the big decision - do I take this idea further or not? - you should
address three key questions:
-
Is my
idea significantly novel?
-
Does my
idea have significant commercial
potential?
-
Am I
ready for the personal challenge of
turning my idea into a business opportunity?
Let us
look at each of these in turn.
