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Is Your Business Idea Feasible?
by Darrin F. Coe, MA

So you have a love for business, have a talent or skill you’re passionate about, and believe you’ve come up with a great business idea? Before you push forward you should consider doing a feasibility study to see whether you’re business idea is worth your time; whether you should just dump the idea; or whether you can modify your idea and make it profitable.

Study a specific business.

• If you can spend some time working for a business that your idea closely resembles this is a great way to develop an idea of feasibility
• If the business is regulated, the regulatory agency will have public records that you can study
• If you have friends in the business ask them if you can spend a day at work with them or spend some time interviewing them.

you perform a feasibility study to determine how much a project will cost and if it can be profitable. You gather facts, and add intuition.

Your feasibility study should include:

A Location Study:

• consider where it is
• consider rent vs. purchase
• consider traffic
• consider possible renovation and remodel costs
  

A Competition Study:

• consider how they could improve their location and costs involved
• study their product/service and what costs might be involved in improving different aspects such as
• delivery and distribution
• quality

A Marketing Presentation:

• what’s the competition’s unique selling point and can you improve it?
• what would be potential costs for the improvements and can you sell the improvements for a profit?

A feasibility study should produce accurate information concerning the potential costs for rent, taxes, utilities, licenses, advertising, renovation/remodeling, and labor if you dig deep enough.

All of this information will prove vital to you when it comes time to produce your business plan and pursue financing for your project. You’ll have good numbers to make financial and marketing projections in a pro forma manner. Take the time to study business idea feasibility it will prove a powerful tool for success.

Darrin Coe is a weekly columnist and author of the ebook, Micro Loans: Finance Your Dreams available at http://dcoe1.tripod.com/microfinance

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