Exploring the viability of a business idea

What happens if you come up with what you think is a brilliant business idea, but are not quite sure whether it is viable? Do you need to start from scratch? Can you still use some elements to rethink the whole idea and come up with a more realistic, market-ready one? Who can help you redirect your efforts in a meaningful way?

When I was approached by this client, these were just some of the many questions that were keeping them up at night.

But let’s take a step back, first.

One of my clients, a service provider, was looking to break into the facility management sector by expanding their current offering to appeal to a new, and somewhat unfamiliar, audience.

In an effort to achieve this, they held an “Innovation Day”, to offer their employees the possibility to think outside the box and come up with innovative ideas to both enhance some of their existing services, and build new ones.

During this event, one employee suggested adding rope access cleaning - a type of outdoor window cleaning - to their offering. That did sound like a potentially great idea, but was it really viable and desirable?

The only way they could know for sure was to rope in (excuse the pun) a service design expert, so they contacted me.

With my structured and pragmatic approach, we quickly developed a bespoke process that allowed us to gain a more thorough understanding of what, exactly, the company needed to consider in order to establish the potential of this business idea.

Deep diving into crucial information

To begin with, I conducted interviews with some of the key internal stakeholders, whilst also analysing market data and trends. Mastering the art of interview running can take a little time and effort, but once the team secure these learnings, they are able to apply them to any future project with ease.

Through this deep dive into my client’s competitive landscape, I was able to bring to the table a wealth of valuable information that the company could later use to explore different business models.

Exploring different business models

Even when you have one, single idea, you should feel free to explore a number of different business models to identify the one that works best, and that’s exactly what we did in this case.

We decided to bring key stakeholders together for a one-day workshop in order to explore a range of variations of business models.

We used cards representing different business model patterns, generated multiple options, and discussed the proposed models.

Lastly, we experimented with the possibility to implement the service internally, as well as with the alternative of partnering with an external - and experienced - company.

Prototyping with numbers

At this point, we wanted to test the viability of the concept in a more tangible, real-life scenario. To this effect, we used “prototyping with numbers” to calculate costs and potential revenues.

The “prototyping with numbers” approach may not be familiar to many of my clients, but it certainly is very useful in determining the factual viability (and, therefore, real-life potential) of an abstract business idea.

With this approach, we can identify what specific information is most important, as well as collect that information rapidly to inform quicker and more effective decisions.

In our case, we looked at some essential factors such as building height, capacity, and weather conditions.

The outcome

As it turns out, the client’s initial idea of delivering a rope access cleaning service as a standalone service was not as profitable or attractive as the company had hoped.

Thanks to my support and the insights uncovered by the research and the prototyping with numbers approach, the client was able to spot this straight away, thus saving thousands of Euros in both time and investments.

The important lesson to learn here is that, instead of blindly investing in a service that looks good on paper but might be, effectively, unviable, it’s crucial to conduct some prior groundwork. 

This can help, as was the case for my client, to pivot rapidly and explore new and more profitable opportunities before time, money, and other resources are lost to an unfortunate business idea.

What’s next?

As it continues to delve deeper into the research that I contributed to, this company has discovered new robotic technologies that sparked unanimous excitement.

This is going to represent an opportunity to stand out from the competition by pioneering some of the most cutting-edge tech solutions in the industry. 

The company is currently building close relationships with tech developers whilst keeping a close eye on how these technologies are progressing. All this will enable them to stay at the forefront of a demanding, fiercely competitive, and ever-evolving sector.

If you find yourself in a similar situation where you have a new service idea but don”t know if it is viable let’s talk.