If you are struggling with business ideation competitions then this is for you. Let's start from the world of creativity, before digging it deeper you must free up your brain from the conventional way of doing things because An innovative solution has some patterns, and understanding those patterns can create a new innovation. now, what does innovation means? From my understanding, it simplifies complicated things. say for ex, the invention of eyeglasses, Mr. Armate conceptualized it first but Mr. spina an italian monk executed it back in 1285 & became an innovator. after 2 centuries later Mr. vinci conceptualized another innovation called the contact lens and after 3 centuries Mr. Muller, a German glassblower come up with the first known glass contact lens back in 1887. Later Mr. Fick & his crew fixed the vision problem and still get the credit for inventing modern contact lens. see the innovation is nothing but an overrated word, it's just an evolution of something.
So, now the question comes how would you generate an idea? start from exploring your passion then geneplore it (Generating a concept & Exploring the value of that concept) you can apply the Task unification technique it's like copying a traditional idea of a product then alter the job of a core component. ex uber just an alternative solution to traditional taxi service. They just altered the job of a core component. Now it's a unicorn (A billion $ Startup) and you will be shocked to know back in 2010 an American investor named Mark Cuban had the chance to invest in Uber when it was only worth $2 million but unfortunately, he couldn't see the vision & called it another dot-com bubble which can be burst at any time yet it disrupted the whole industry, :v even the extension of it was tremendous. so your idea may be or may not be worth pursuing depending on whether you have the right team & passion to keep stick to it.
Difference between Startup & Business: A simple & crispy definition can be fundraising capability. A business can't raise funds except going for IPO & a startup can get funds from the seed round and it goes on & on from series A to all alphabets until it makes it to the IPO
Judges favorites ideas: Recycling & upcycling solutions, Eco-friendly solutions or anything on specific SDG's, sex education or any social norm solution, Fintech or an integration of modern technologies like Ai, Bigdata, Blockchain on any conventional idea
Idea Development: After you geneplore something you must place it to business model canvas to better analyze the Market fit (learn about B.canvas on your own from -> https://bit.ly/3vrq9ea) Be very specific while inputting your components, Make sure to cover up all the WHY's. This canvas is basically a golden thread that will weave all of your business components together.
Trending Business Models: Freemium + servitisation (subscription) mostly SaaS platforms, Aggregator (Pathao, Uber), Switchboard (Walmart), There is a startup named Kludio they came up with their own business model it's called kitchen as a service. So, it simply means startups don't follow theoretical stuff, they mostly have a different/sophitacated kind of operation, management & revenue structure which you can't learn in any business school in Bangladesh.
Financial Aspect: Every startup & business has to prepare 3 financial statements. starting from an Income statement, Balance Sheet, Cash Flow Statement
Investors Aspects: It's really difficult to say what an investor will look for on an idea, It can be started from cross-functionality of the team, scalability of the idea, potential barriers to get entry, and also on financial aspects like initial investment required, BEP, ROI, NPV & Payback Period. Make sure to include all these aspects in your pitch deck.
Pitching: I think you should start watching Shark Tank or Dragons Den to craft appealing & crispy pitches. the best practice could be pitching it to your younger siblings & see whether they can understand the idea without any further explanation.
Poc vs Prototype vs MVP: you can research some related ideas which have been succeeded in west and you can show it as PoC (Proof of concept) or you can also conduct market research on your own to use it as PoC. The next step is Prototype: It's the early stage of your product. Then Minimum viable product that should include enough features to be usable of your product.
Competitions: Luckily we got some competitions as well where you can win grant, office space, mentorship, access to angels & VC
Bizmaestros [Business idea for UBL + Strategies]
Battle of Minds [Business idea for BAT + Strategies]
Banglalink Ennovators [Business idea + Strategies]
RB Global Challenge [Business idea for RB + Strategies]
Mecceleration [Business idea + Strategies]
Pioneros [Business idea + Strategies] seed fund provider
Entrepret [Grant based business ideation competition]
Idea Innovation by Int. care [Grant based business ideation competition]
Startup Bangladesh [Equity based business ideation competition]
BYLC Venture cohort [Equity based business ideation competition]
Ygap accelerator [Accelerator program]
YYGoshti incubation program (1 female cofounder required)
NSU Startup Next (1 Nsuian cofounder required)
Founders Institute BD cohort
and many more occasional competitions.
Learning Resources: Follow entrepreneur(dot)com, Future startup, yt channels like slidebean, business casual, bloomberg technology, forbes, company man. Read book "Zero to one" "Rich Dad Poor Dad" "Lean Startup" you can also listen to a google podcast called "How I built This"
One of my favorite quote from Phil Libin, (Co-founder & CEO of Evernotes)
"Finding your business is like finding your mate... you might go through a few of them before it all comes together"
NB: This article is crafted exclusively for this group only. so, I'd highly appreciate if you ask for permission before sharing with any other mediums.
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