Use a Pros and Cons Analysis to Choose the Right Business Idea

Most entrepreneurial types have a million business ideas, and under pressure they could come up with a million and one. The trick to a successful startup is picking the right one for the time, resources, and market available when you are ready to launch. Very few businesses fail because the idea is not viable, but a great many opportunities are missed because the entrepreneur doesn’t take the time to evaluate the best idea to pursue given the circumstances.Every startup requires time, money and hard work to succeed, but the road is much smoother if there is a sufficient, reachable market for your product. Every business idea should go through a cursory analysis before any significant resources are spent. A rudimentary pros and cons list can go a long way in eliminating bad business ideas and can give you a head start in developing the good ones.The pros and cons of any new business idea should include, at a minimum, the following areas:DifficultyHow much do you know about the actual operations of your business idea? How much effort is required to produce a single unit of your product? Do you have the skills to produce it yourself or will you partner up, hire experienced employees, or outsource the skills that you lack?MarketIs there a sufficient market to support your business idea? That is, are there enough people or businesses that will benefit from your product that marketing can be fairly broad? Or will you have to seek and find a very limited number of opportunities to sell? Is your idea a positive innovation on something people already use or will you have to introduce an entirely new concept to your market? Does your idea provide a greater benefit to your customers than the competition’s products? Will that increased benefit be enough to draw your own market share? How will your product be distributed initially? Down the road?IndustryHow crowded is the industry you are entering? Are there a lot of big guns you will be competing with? How will you fit into the marketplace? Will you compete on quality, benefits, price or some other factor? And, will the market respond to those differences? Remember that competing on price is the most difficult, unless you have concocted an innovative way to produce for far less than anyone else. Where is the industry headed? Will your idea expand to meet the needs of an ever-changing marketplace?Resource NeedsWhat do you estimate your startup will cost? Do you have access to enough cash to launch it on your own? Assume, worst-case, that finding outside funding will be impossible…is there a way to modify your idea to make it affordable? Do you have the time to devote to your startup? Can you afford to work a few months without significant income? How much of your personal resources are you willing to risk?InterestObjectively consider whether the business idea will hold your attention and interest over time. If you are motivated purely by profit, but have no interest in the product itself, it will be difficult to stay motivated through the dark days of your startup…and there will be dark days. You don’t necessarily have to love your business idea to succeed, but you need to find satisfaction in the day-to-day work. Somebody made millions from producing twist ties…it is doubtful that they adored the idea of twist ties before launching the business. More likely, they enjoyed the manufacturing and production industry in general, and saw a need for that particular item.Path ForwardWrite down every relevant factor you can think of related to your business idea and list out the pros and cons of each. Be as objective as possible about each aspect Talk to people about your idea and accept their input. Never be offended by negative responses, but try to dig for information that might improve on your original idea. Most of the time solid planning results in a far different venture than initially considered — this is a good sign. The more you learn, the more you can refine your idea into one that is bound for success.If you have multiple business ideas, list the pros and cons for each of them, then compare the outcomes. Begin your entrepreneurial career with the easiest option; you can always launch the other ideas later. In fact, a little experience in starting any size and type of business will probably reduce the cons of your other ideas by the time you get around to launching them.

How to Measure Finance Strength of Online Banking Companies

A good and decent company abides by set objectives and fulfills these objectives to promote growth and progress. Measurable company KPI’s should complement these objectives to maintain integrity while in the process of realizing the said objectives. The question of integrity will always be there since there is more than one way to achieve an objective. Unfortunately, some of the ways can be tagged as unethical to common business standards, thus, the issue with integrity. Methods, like how to measure finance, can be intervened. Results can be tampered just to show a solid intra-company economy, despite the fact that the company is suffering losses.Now, why would a company do that? The answer is simple. A revealed weakened state does not attract investors at all. On the contrary, investors flee at the first sight of heavy loss. Putting it at a more understandable perspective: Would you pour precious water into a leaking container? If you are aware that the container has a leak and you deem your water precious, pouring it in would just mean you are wasting your water, and you are very well aware of the process. It makes sense when placed into this context. Or, does it? Either way, investors will never waste their money on something that could mean a sure loss on their part when it comes to ROI or returns on their investments.The strength of online banking companies is evident at a distance. Even if you have not been to their webpages or have not read some of their company background, the people they have done business with can pretty much mirror what they really are. Satisfied customers are walking ads for these online banking companies. So, this is one way of measuring their finance strength, through people they have done business with.Online finance companies, more or less, revolve around these two common objectives: customer acquisition and minimized interactions cost. For sure, both objectives are easy to understand. For customer acquisition, it simply means the accumulation of customers to do business with. As for minimized interactions cost, it means that the company will keep expense at a minimum for every interaction done between them and their customers. Since there is mention of KPIs indirectly affecting a company’s ways in achieving company goals or objectives, it will be wise to determine specifically what these are.Customer acquisition has a separate set of KPIs; these are account sign-up, addition of new accounts, application downloads (since the company is online), pre-approvals (for new accounts opened), and locating an agent. High marks on these measured KPIs ensure the accomplishment of the customer acquisition objective. The KPIs for the second objective, on the other hand, are as follows: average cost/interaction, self-service visits, response (email, calls, etc.), and web percentage of customer interactions.Summing up, the two ways on how to measure finance strength of an online banking company are through the people the company has done business with and the strict compliance to the KPIs the company follows to achieve their objectives. Fulfilling these two and observing integrity every step of the way will not need a cover up of losses since a company will never experience loss after it accomplishes its objectives without cheating through them.

Online Finance Software to Manage Your Finance

Maintaining your personal finance is not a piece of cake. It usually takes a lot of time to find out all your incomes and expenses. You will definitely take a lot of time to gather your bank statements and other details like credit card statements, mortgage details etc. So, the old method of making your own budget using a pencil and paper is actually very difficult and next to impossible in today’s fast moving world.What should you do then? But there is a way out. The modern method of financial planning utilizes the online tools to make a budget for you. There are a number of tools that are available both online and offline. You can easily choose from any one of the many finance tools that area variable today.The perfect tool that suites you needs have to be chosen by you should be depending on your needs. All that you have do when you use a person finance tool is to provide the tool with all the required financial details like your bank account statements, credit card statements, bank loan details and other similar information. The advanced tools these days help you manage your personal finance very easily. There are many tools that even provide advanced facilities like tax calculation and net worth statements.You can now easily use a finance tool to manage your personal finance budget. Compared to the pen and pencil method that was used earlier, the personal finance software helps you manage your finance tool effectively. So start using your finance software to manage your tool.