| |
Starting and Growing a Business: Evaluating Your Idea | |
| |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
  |
 | Evaluate Your Product or Service | Identify Resources | Market Research | Trend Analysis | Risk Management | Evaluating Your Idea Checklist
Will Your Idea Work?
A critical and objective assessment of your business idea will help you understand the attributes and benefits of your product or service. Knowing your product or service inside and out will also help you identify the resources, time, people and money required to make your new venture a success.
A common word used when assessing an idea is 'feasibility', which refers to the ease at which something can be done. Conducting a feasibility assessment is especially important when you are developing a new product, improving an existing product, changing marketing strategy or expanding or contracting your business. Feasibility may also be thought of as the capability of being used or dealt with successfully. It is that word - successfully - that gives feasibility assessment its real value as a planning and risk management tool. |
 | |
| Evaluate Your Product or Service
Is Your New Venture Realistic?
- Decision Making – Will You Start a New Enterprise? – Ag-Alternatives is a series of factsheets designed to help you evaluate the feasibility of a new business idea. Worksheets are provided to help you personalize the information.
- Is My New Venture Idea Profitable? – This factsheet will assist you in assessing the feasibility of your business idea. It is designed to help you screen out ideas that have limited opportunity, allowing you to invest your time, money and effort into ideas with a high potential for success.
- Financial Feasibility – Can You Afford to do it? – This factsheet shows you how to analyze the financial side of your new enterprise.
- Can You Make Money With Your Idea or Invention – This publication from the Canada-Ontario Business Service Centre is aimed at idea people, inventors, and innovative owner-managers of small companies and describes tests every idea must pass before it makes money.
- Evaluating the Feasibility of Business Opportunities – This fact sheet from the Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs will walk you through the steps needed to evaluate the feasibility of your business.
- What is a Feasibility Study? - This site from Iowa State University is part of an Ag Decision Maker series and is a helpful guide that covers topics such as the Pre-feasibility Study, Go/No Go-Decisions, Feasibility study vs. Business Plan Reasons Given Not to Do a Feasibility Study and Reasons to Do a Feasibility Study.
|
| Identify Resources
Do You Have the Resources to Make Your Idea Work?
- Identifying Alternatives - Now that you and your family have identified criteria to sort good enterprise ideas from poor ones, you need to brainstorm some enterprise ideas. What enterprise ideas would make the best use of your situation?
- Collaborate for Success - Successful enterprises are often the result of collaboration. This factsheet highlights the benefits and key elements of collaboration.
- Production Requirements - Do You Have the Resources? - Ag-Alternatives is a series of factsheets designed to help you evaluate the feasibility of a new business idea. Worksheets are provided to help you judge the feasibility of producing a product or providing a service.
- Choosing a Consultant … An Investment in Your Agricultural Business - This factsheet will help you understand the key elements needed to manage a business and how a consultant can help you develop a business plan and assess the profitability of a business venture.
Market Research
Have You Done Your Research?
Trend Analysis
What are the Trends in Your Chosen Industry?
- Market Trends - Frequently Asked Questions - Answers to common questions about market trends and links to further information from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development.
- The Consumer Food Trend Series - This series looks at current and emerging food consumption trends in order to define market opportunities and provide recommendations to the Alberta agri-food industry in their business decisions
- Understanding Consumer Trends Can Present New Opportunities - This factsheet from Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development discusses the difference between fads and trends and highlights current consumer trends in Alberta.
- The Consumer Trends Report - This research document from the Office of Consumer Affairs provides a general overview of past and current economic and marketplace trends and points to research gaps and opportunities for future work by the consumer affairs community. Watch this site for updates.
Risk Management
How Much Are You Willing to Risk?
- RiskChoices - RiskChoices is a strategic risk-planning tool that helps promote and facilitate discussions about risk, and helps you focus needed attention and resources on managing risk. Talk to your partners, brainstorm with others, and consider some of the questions included in RiskChoices to help you identify the risks for your business.
- Seven Steps to Making a Decision - There are seven steps to follow when you are faced with any dilemma. Using the checklist in this Alberta Agriculture and Rural Development page as a guideline may help you make future decisions.
- Controlling Costs With Risk Management - This information from the Insurance Bureau of Canada provides a quick overview of risk management, benefits of managing risk and reasons for developing a risk management strategy.
|
| |
Phone the Ag-Info Centre, toll-free in Alberta at 310-FARM (3276), for assistance. |
This document is produced in cooperation with
 |
|
|
| |
|
|
| |
For more information about the content of this document, contact Kathy Bosse.
This document is maintained by Mary Ann Nelson.
This information published to the web on April 24, 2007.
Last Reviewed/Revised on March 4, 2008.
|
|