The following misconceptions and realities related to business idea should be understood for a proper conception of a business idea:
- Great ideas just appear out of nowhere: This is the common misconception related to a business idea and assumes that business ideas appear out of nowhere. However, the reality is that, the best idea generators tend to develop a business idea in a structured and systematic way. They do not wait for the idea to appear itself. Instead, they approach idea generation as a top priority activity by devoting sufficient period of time to it.
- There are no illogical ideas: This is again a common misconception related to business idea and assumes that all business ideas are logical. But the reality is that, many business ideas may not be very good.
However, to prevent idea generators from feeling that their contribution is not being valued, all ideas should be approached as worthy. Sometimes, however, the inverse can also be true. A worthy idea can come from what earlier was thought to be an illogical idea.
- The customer will tell you what to do, if you will only listen: The best source of idea is undoubtedly the people, who will purchase an entrepreneur's products/ services. But, the only problem with this belief is that, although customers can help identify unmet needs, more involvement with them is required in making a great idea workable. Simply listening to customers will lead to nowhere.
- We can generate all the ideas we will ever need, if we sit down at a meeting: Again, a very common misconception, that many ideas can be generated through a meeting. This can be true, but it should also be remembered that great ideas are best shaped through an ongoing dialogue, not restricted to a specific place and time. So, generating great ideas should not be restricted to a meeting.
- Implementing ideas is a problem: The reality is that, problems with implementation arise from not screening carefully enough, the ideas that are generated.
If this were done, a lot of frustration could be minimised as ill-thought-out ideas could be screened out before even being implemented.