Feasibility analysis: the means to a successful end

Conducting a feasibility analysis is the single most important step that can nip business mishaps and entrepreneurial failure in the bud. Still, people often leap in the dark and later on, they regret doing so. Why? Because they did not proceed carefully and they did not see the business forest for the trees.

Most of us, if not all of us, have plenty of ideas for products and services that we would like to offer to the world. We might come up something totally revolutionary, which can change the course of an entire industry, or something trivial, that can still come in handy and add value to the lives of its users.

Sometimes, however, despite our best efforts, our ideas are not well received and we end up with failed products. In addition to the bitter taste of disappointment and failure, you’ll be generally in for quite some cash spent on researching, developing, launching, and further promoting your out-of-place brainchild. At that point, there is nothing else to do but retreat and forget about this quite unpleasant experience. Yet, there are a lot of lessons to be learned. Luckily, you do not have to learn them the hard way and you can prevent the whole fiasco from happening (right from the start). How? By conducting the so called feasibility analysis!

This is how it works. Once you have come up with a spectacular idea for a product and/ or a service, you should shake off your excitement and focus. Think about your business concept and try to answer the questions we discussed in the previous Marketing 101: It’s all in the business concept post. If your idea does not really add any value to the lives of people or it does not solve their problems, then you should probably discard it. If however, it passes this test with flying colors, then you should engage in some market research and test the reactions of your future clients. This is where we should open a huge bracket and point out that often, people react prematurely and initially, they may disapprove of your idea. This should not dishearten you! Many times, pundits and industry gurus have turned down brilliant ideas. Initially, people turned down even Twitter, persuaded that this micro-blogging social network would never work! Well, they were wrong! Nonetheless, it is advisable that you listen to other opinions, consult with as many people as possible, glean insights and useful data, and try to figure out if your idea still stands a chance.

Overall, conducting a feasibility study is a very complex and time-consuming process as there are many variables such as the type of industry you are in, your target audience, the consumer culture, etc. In Japan, for example, cat cafes are extremely popular. In Europe or the USA, this kind of service might be considered somehow eccentric. In fact, because of the limited space in Japan, not all the cat lovers there can afford to take care of a cute little furry ball at home. Hence, the cat cafes are filling a need and for a certain fee, people can play with cats, feed them, pamper them, and eventually experience the feeling of having a cute, fluffy, precious kitten by your side. It is debatable if such a service would work in the rest of the world, but again, one never knows!

So, what do you have to retain at the end of the day? Well, the moral of today’s story could be resumed like this: do a feasibility analysis before moving on to designing and developing fabulous your projects and pay special attention to the following keystones:

• Ask yourself if the product and/or service you would like to provide adds any value to the lives of the people who could use it and if it solves their real problems;
• Do a profound market research and try to narrow your product or service idea down. Do not bite off more than you can chew! Study consumer culture and consumer habits carefully. Try to determine if your idea would appeal to them. Although a great book called Blue Ocean Strategy, written by W. Chan Kim and Renee Mauborgne, teaches us that people often do not know what they want and we should strive to offer them something even better, prospective clients are anything but stupid! Businesses are now dealing with well-informed, technically savvy individuals, who are hunting for information and carefully weighing their options. Moreover, they tend to be impervious to suave talking;
• See who your competitors are and examine their weaknesses and strengths! Do not wage a war on industry giants unless you have an ace of spades up your sleeve;
• Glean some data and collect as much feedback as possible! In the old marketing days, marketers resorted to the use of surveys, questionnaires, and focus groups in order to collect some insights about the product or service they wanted to develop. Nowadays, these techniques are still useful, but there are many more ways to collect the much coveted feedback rapidly and efficiently. In order to prevent any intellectual property infringement or a blatant theft of your idea (which at that stage is still an idea, rather than a developed product or service), license it under Creative Commons and proceed to design a nice landing page or simply blog about this idea of yours! Once you have completed that, start generating some buzz and share your concept with your followers on Twitter, with your friends on Facebook, and even with strangers in a relevant industry forum. You will obtain valuable feedback, and people can even give you some suggestions how to develop your concept further. Social media and forums are very fertile testing grounds and all you have to do is use them properly;
• Think global but act local! Determine the scope of your market and its geographical parameters. Bear in mind the particularities of your market and test your idea against that very backdrop; Don’t forget that your product or service should be all about people. Think about the ways people can make use of your product and define the list of obstacles you might run into when trying to promote your invention. If the costs outweigh the benefits, you might want to reconsider your entire product or service concept;
• Make sure you know the local laws as well as all the applicable legal provisions! Sometimes, legislation can make your life really difficult. Hence, it is a good idea to study the relevant laws and figure out if they somehow hinder or restrict the future development of your product or service.

Once you cover those steps, you have your feasibility analysis ready! Although it is a time consuming initiative, it is all worth it. If you have passed the feasibility test, congratulations! You have the immense potential of becoming the hottest new thing in your industry! Do not waste precious time and start developing your star product or your ace service! In the mean time, keep an eye on your competitors and check how they are doing. In addition, stay tuned to the feed that rocks, follow us on Twitter or join us on Facebook because next time, I will tell you how to analyze your industrial rivals so that you can surpass them all!