Wal-Mart started with one store. Amazon.com started with one "tab" at the top of their home page. Today Wal-Mart has over a 100 million customers per day. And today Amazon.com has so many product lines that they have one tab again, but it says "See all 43 Product Categories."

 

Where does the idea for the next mega-store come from? How can a good idea be protected from competition?

 

This lecture covers idea generation, protecting the idea from competition and something perhaps just as important: Does your product idea fit you?

 

Ideas

Internet Businesses

It all started with one "tab."

Burst! Media

Morphological Analysis

• Products
• Markets
• Channels/media

Brainstorming

What ideas do you have for a business?

Examples of student ideas.

Competing Technologies and/or Companies

Good News

• Original idea
• Initial momentum

Bad News

• Not a unique idea
• Lack of resources

Fit with Skills and Interests

Capability

• You have it
• You can get it

Fun

• You like it
• You grow into it

MAGIC (see full explanation)

Actions That Cannot Be Matched

• Domain name registration   (Network Solutions)
• Patent a way of doing business
• Trademarks
• Contracts with key customers
• Unique capabilities

Actions That Probably Will Not Be Matched

• Financial resources beyond competition
• Product or promotion inconsistent with competitors' product or promotion

Personal Development Strategy

Start a business on your own

• Keep budget low
• Scale up
• Partner with others

Take your idea to others

• Find an angel
• Get venture capital
• Go public

Work for an Internet company

• Technical
• Marketing
• Management