{"id":4123,"date":"2014-03-27T07:00:53","date_gmt":"2014-03-27T13:00:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tested-neuron.flywheelsites.com\/?p=4123"},"modified":"2015-02-17T13:23:22","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T20:23:22","slug":"3-tricks-to-turn-your-ideas-into-reality","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/unreasonablegroup.com\/articles\/3-tricks-to-turn-your-ideas-into-reality\/","title":{"rendered":"3 Tricks To Turn Your Ideas Into Realities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Why Give a Damn:<\/h3>\n

The patron saint of the Unreasonable Institute is George Bernard Shaw, who wrote that, \u201cAll progress depends on the unreasonable man.\u201d (Today, I trust he would change that to \u201cperson.\u201d) But progress doesn\u2019t come from unreasonable thinkers\u2014it comes from unreasonable doers. Your ideas don\u2019t matter unless you turn them into realities. Here are three of my tricks to take the first step towards that goal.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

The author of this post, Chris Yeh<\/a>, has been building internet businesses since 1995 and currently serves as the VP of Marketing for PBworks, as well as a General Partner at Wasabi Ventures.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

I have a lot of ideas. Years ago, I started collecting them in a Word document. By the time I shifted to putting them in the cloud, I had 73 pages of startup ideas. Now I store my ideas in a PBworks workspace, and I\u2019ve added another 380 startup ideas to the pile. The point is that it\u2019s relatively easy to come up with interesting ideas. It\u2019s easy to ponder and polish those ideas in your mind as you go about your day job or domestic duties. What\u2019s hard is turning them into realities.<\/p>\n

Recently, I saw a post on Hacker News which offered to pay hackers $5,000 to build the idea they\u2019ve always wanted to build (but hadn\u2019t). The poster would then spend $3,000 on marketing to assess the idea. In exchange for this $8,000 (and a bit of time), he would get 50% of the equity in the company.<\/p>\n

Progress doesn\u2019t come from unreasonable thinkers\u2014it comes from unreasonable doers.<\/i>  Tweet This Quote<\/a><\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

By any comparison with traditional angel and VC investment, it\u2019s a terrible deal. You\u2019re essentially selling stock at an $8,000 premoney valuation in an environment where most seed deals get done at a valuation in the multiple millions. Yet the person who offered the deal was overwhelmed with people applying to work with him.<\/p>\n

People have so much trouble turning ideas into realities that they\u2019re willing to take any deal that helps them do it, no matter how lopsided or unfair. I\u2019ve helped dozens of entrepreneurs get their ideas off the ground. Here are just a few of my best hacks for turning ideas into realities, and you don\u2019t even have to give up equity for them!<\/p>\n

1.<\/strong>\u00a0 Write a press release for your product launch.<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s far too easy to have vague notions about what might happen if you pursue your idea, but you probably don\u2019t want to skip straight to building your product. Instead, take an hour or two and write the press release for your launch. If you can\u2019t do it with a straight face, you ought to reconsider your idea. And the process of trying to write your launch announcement ought to highlight the key things you need to do to build your credibility.<\/p>\n

2.\u00a0<\/strong> Sell your product on eBay\/Amazon.<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s trendy to put things on Kickstarter, but the reality is that most products aren\u2019t amenable to true crowdfunding. If you\u2019re able to get $10 million on Kickstarter, kudos to you! But if you aren\u2019t an electronic gadget or video game, the results might not tell you much. Instead, use the built-in audiences available on eBay and Amazon to test out your pitch. You don\u2019t even need a web site of your own (a shockingly high barrier for non-techies).<\/p>\n

3.\u00a0<\/strong> Turn your initial product into a service.<\/h3>\n

Products are harder to launch than services. Anyone can hang up a shingle as a consultant; building a real product takes much more effort. But a product that can\u2019t succeed as a high-touch service is unlikely to succeed as a low-touch product.<\/p>\n

Come up with the service equivalent of what you want to build. Then try to sell it, even if it\u2019s to friends and family. This accomplishes two things\u2014first, you get some actual market validation. Second, you get direct, intimate exposure to the target market and its actual needs.<\/p>\n

No investor in the world is going to invest based on this, but that\u2019s not the point. Your goal is to figure out for yourself if the idea is worth pursuing further. Even if you find out that it\u2019s not, isn\u2019t that better than wasting your time on it for years and years?<\/p>\n

An Unreasonable Challenge:<\/h3>\n

Have you got an awesome idea that\u2019s been lying around in your head? This month, choose one of my three tricks and take that first step towards turning it into a reality. You should be able to do any of the three in the next 30 days, and I suspect you\u2019ll find that once you take that first step, you\u2019ll have a much easier time maintaining your forward momentum!<\/em><\/p>\n

This article is being re-featured today as a special “Throwback Thursday” post. We loved it so much, we wanted to make sure all of our new readers had a chance to read Chris’s article, (and share in the conversation).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Your ideas don\u2019t matter unless you turn them into realities. 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