Not Every Idea Rules the World
Finding the One that works for your business

Do you know that every day, in the world, three new startups are launched every second, making up for 11,000 Startups every hour, or 259,200 per day? Now, that’s staggering. But it tells the story of the times. Having and running a business is becoming more and more important for the average person. In this age of voice, inspired by, ushered in, and sustained by the internet of things, everyone is finding their voice—as is evident in how we relate and talk with one another. It is not surprising that just about anyone or everyone can now own and build a business. 

Every business exists offering products or services to the market with the goal of satisfying needs, improving the quality of life through what it offers, and ultimately making a profit in a legal and ethical way. However, the very foundation upon which these products or services are built is an idea—or ideas. A local saying goes thus: “life is a marketplace—where we come to sell and buy.” Every human interaction is actually a buy-and-sell experience—emotional deposits and withdrawals are constantly taking place. 

Businesses do more than just sell things to satisfy people’s needs. They define the sociocultural landscape and contribute to sustaining economic life and even offer support and enablement to political structures—you need material and intellectual resources if you want to do politics, don’t you? The commercial activities of buying and selling, therefore, permeate every facet of human life—culturally, socially, economically, politically, and even religiously. Yet businesses are formed primarily from ideas, established on well-accepted ideals, and funded by material and human resources. The power of human-centered ideas is evident in the countless legions of businesses—globally, continentally, and locally—responsible for the quality of life we enjoy today. Some of these businesses, particularly the multinationals, are even more powerful than some countries—yet each and every business, whether small or big, good or great, began with an idea. Ideas surely rule the world. 

Yet why do some ideas fail? In fact, for all the mantras about ideas ruling the world, more ideas fail than succeed. If you’re an entrepreneur or have embarked on the adventurous run that typically characterizes enterprise development,  then you’re already familiar with failure as a given. Failure hurts and is emotionally sapping—not to talk of the financial implications involved.  Ideas run and will continue to run the world until the concept of ideas ceases to exist. Yet not every idea is worth pursuing at a given time. In fact, the concept of time and timing is perhaps the most determining factor in the relevance and success of an idea.  Ideas are a valid currency of life but life is in times and seasons—something nobody has control over! We simply come to terms with the times and seasons through knowledge, wisdom, and understanding. It begins with that attitude of gratitude for what already is, an appreciation of things around you, and that sense of awareness that there is always a turning in the tides in men. In other words, nothing last permanently but change is always inevitable. 

Ideas can be likened to seeds. They need to be received first and then they need to be planted. Seeds when planted must interact with elements of nature in a cooperative way. Water, air, sunlight,  earth nutrients, etc all combine in varying proportions with the seeds to cause growth to happen up to the point of the “harvest”. So in reality, the seed in itself is not the “full” seed. It has its other parts in each of the contributing elemental forces—in other words, the environment gives the right response to sustaining the release of the potential of that seed. In a similar way, your idea must be like that. Ideas in themselves just don’t take off and fly. You must have enough awareness to know if the environment will make the requisite contribution to that idea in order to ensure its survival, growth, and eventual success. Some ideas are just not in their season yet. Some may never be. Some are just in time as time and chance seem to favour their course.  

Ideas should never be solely about what you want to do, it should be the conclusion of what you observe as the “gaps” in the needs of the market you’re targeting.  This is quite instructive because we all see different needs based on our perceptions of things in life. However, with what you observe or can perceive, having an effective and timely feedback mechanism is key in gauging the direction of your thoughts to see how in sync you’re with the realities of people’s lives. Ideas are about serving needs and providing solutions—otherwise, you might just be spending time, effort, and resources on something that is neither needed nor appreciated.

Everyone is born unique and wired differently with personality traits that are best suited to certain predispositions and vocations. Yet no one is perfect or absolute in their sufficiency. We were created to connect with, and it is through being connected with that insights comes that we open up our awareness to the gaps in needs—the very springboard for ideas. We see things differently because we’re all different in our unique ways. Yet with your ideas, you must be able to negotiate to see if it fits into the gaps in needs you see or think you see. As an SME, ideas are your best friends—they are what makes you relevant to the culture of the time. Yes, every business must exist for something specific as revealed in the business name, article of corporation, and consequently brand development—however the ideas that will drive the engine of your business venture must be a constant negotiation between how you see or what you think you see, and what your market recognize and accept as a need in that moment in time. The process is obviously more demanding and requires more structure than we may make it seem in training seminars and motivational speeches; knowing what you’re up against prepares your mind. 

Businesses are born from initial ideas—but every subsequent idea must be built into your business structure and systems. A significant aspect of that requires that you pay attention to what the environment is telling you.