Is your great idea good enough? Can it grow in this slow economy? Can it become profitable, and return on any investments it requires?

Well, there’s no way to know until you try, right? Hardly. There are some ways to prepare yourself, test your idea, and improve it before you actually found a company around it. We’ve compiled the best examples from recent Inc. articles and Inc.com guides of tips for the very early steps of building a start-up.

1. Scope out your industry.

Or, if you’re just starting to think about entrepreneurship in general, find the best industry to fit your style and talents. For example, this year’s burgeoning industries include interactive technology (from mobile app design to tech-savvy translation), wellness (healthy beverages), and little luxuries, such as baked goods. When you start honing in on a specialty area, seek out counselors and talk to industry veterans. You can go to SCORE, the SBA, the Women’s Economic Development Agency, or scores more. The Internet, your local library, the U.S. Census Bureau, business schools, industry associations, can be invaluable sources of information and contacts. For instance, you might approach business schools in your area to see if one of their marketing classes will take on your business as a test project. You could potentially get some valuable market research results at no cost.

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by Jason L Baptiste

I move forward the only direction
Cant be scared to fail in Search of perfection

-Jay-Z, On To The Next One

I’m going to go and replace 3 years with a “short time frame”. Some things to focus on:

Market opportunity- A million dollars is not a lot in the grand scheme of things, but it certainly is a lot if the market opportunity is not large enough. Even if you put Bill Gates and Steve Jobs as founders in a new venture with a total market size of 10 million, there is no way they could become too wealthy without completely changing the business (ie- failing).

Inequality of information- Find a place where you know something that many undervalue. Having this inequality of information can give you, your first piece of leverage.

Leverage skills you know- You can go into new fields such as say Finance, but make sure you’re leveraging something you already know such as technology and/or product. Someone wanted to start a documentary with me. I said that would be fun, but it would be my first documentary regardless of what happened. There was a glass ceiling due to that. If I do something leveraging a skill I know, I’m already ahead of the game.

Look in obscure places- We’re often fascinated with the shiny things in the internet industry. Many overlook the obscure and unsexy. Don’t make that mistake. If your goal has primarily monetary motivations, look at the unsexy.  One example would be email newsletters, which I’ve profiled before.

Surround yourself with smart people- Smart people whom are successful usually got there by doing the same and have an innate desire to help those do the same. It’s the ecosystem that’s currently happening with the paypal mafia and can be traced all the way back to fairchild semiconductor.

Charge for something- Building a consumer property dependent upon advertising has easily made many millionaires, but it isn’t the surest path. It takes a lot of time and scale, which due to cashflow issues will require large outside investment probably before you are a millionaire. Build something that you can charge for.  That’s how business has worked for thousands of years prior to the 1990s.  Make something, charge for it, repeat it.  DHH explains this really well at Startup School 08.

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1. Ideas don’t come from watching television
2. Ideas sometimes come from listening to a lecture
3. Ideas often come while reading a book
4. Good ideas come from bad ideas, but only if there are enough of them
5. Ideas hate conference rooms, particularly conference rooms where there is a history of criticism, personal attacks or boredom
6. Ideas occur when dissimilar universes collide
7. Ideas often strive to meet expectations. If people expect them to appear, they do
8. Ideas fear experts, but they adore beginner’s mind. A little awareness is a good thing
9. Ideas come in spurts, until you get frightened. Willie Nelson wrote three of his biggest hits in one week
10. Ideas come from trouble

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There’s always talk about the end game in the form of an acquisition, funding announcement, or eventual flame out. Hollywood has even made a movie about the founding of Facebook that glamorizes startup life instead of showing what it really is: a day in day out marathon of work with very little glamor. We rarely hear about the harsh realities that entrepreneurs face and the journey that this entails. This isn’t meant to be a downbeat and negative article, but actually quite the opposite. By knowing the harsh realities that lie ahead, you can be prepared when they come about so you can solider on. Here are some of the harsh realities that come with the territory of being an entrepreneur.

Your First Iteration of an Idea Will Be Wrong

The first iteration or implementation of your idea will often be wrong. That’s not because you’re not smart, not doing the right things, or some other reason to come down hard on yourself. As it turns out, this is actually a good sign. No idea survives its first interactions with its customers and requires you to synthesize feedback to adapt to the customer. You could be prideful, not listen to what your customers are telling you, and keep things the way they were. In the end, that just leaves you with no customers and a product you may not even use yourself. It’s okay if things change up a bit when it comes to your idea and its implementation.

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by Jason L Baptiste

Earlier this week there was a post about an entrepreneur losing 4 million dollars in sales due to his reliance upon Google as their primary sales+distribution channel. The same problem faces Demand Media with their IPO, Zynga with diversifying beyond Facebook, and many other startups that are primarily platform plays dependent upon the mercy of the platform overlords. As an entrepreneur I find it very important to have a large diversified distribution channel for customer acquisition. The goal of this article is to outline the plethora of distribution channels that exist for startups.

Public Relations
Public Relations is a strong distribution channel due to its low cost and repeatable nature. PR certainly has a human capital cost, but can be fairly easy to execute with the right story. It can also be highly segmented ie- verticals, industries, and audiences. It can also help bring forth social proof. As seen on CNN, TechCrunch, and the New York Times will always be a seller.

Organic Search Traffic
Organic search traffic is the gift that keeps on giving. It can go away due to an algorithm tweak by Google or a simple drop in rankings. For the most part, the traffic generated by organic search traffic will stay generally the same. It may increase due to a demand for the product you’re offering, seasonality,etc. Optimizing for organic search is also a smart move as it can benefit future content that is created. Once you’re “trusted” by Google, it can help with new content you produce. Organic search traffic has a “cost” in terms of time, proper optimization, human capital,etc. but the cash outlay is much much smaller than paid search traffic.

Content Marketing
I believe content marketing is the future of customer acquisition and a cost effective, scaleable, and brandable way to acquire customers. One method of content marketing might include educational and analytical blog posts on topics related to your market. Another method might include putting together infographics and white papers that also educate your prospective customers.  Content marketing can be further enhanced with Organic Search Traffic and Social Media Marketing. Make sure you are capturing as many email addresses as possible when educating your audience for lead prospecting. Here’s why I feel content marketing is important
The content should be: educational, actionable, and full of utility. A reader should learn something and be prompted to do something they could not before.
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