We all have ideas and concepts that we believe can change our communities or environments if properly executed, however more times than often, they only ever remain as ideas and concepts that exist in our minds. Every good business started with a big idea, but every entrepreneur knows that your ideas will not work if you do not.

Once you have an idea here are a few steps that you can take on your way to building a plan to execute your idea. Firstly, Dragan Sutevski suggests that having a business ideas book is one of the ways to keep track of and to easily follow the progress you are making on turning your idea into a business. The business ideas book can be a notebook or a paper, based on your preference, where you will write everything that will come to your mind as a business idea.

The content that goes into your business ideas book is content that will be aimed at increasing your creativity and force you to some new thinking that will improve your process. You must reserve one page or piece of paper for one idea, this way you can also be able to see which idea is most likely to work, based on research and the current market. Amongst things such as the name and description of your idea and business, the most important content has to be future activities. With this content, your book becomes a blueprint for the next steps towards building a successful business. Here are a few steps that should definitely make it to the list:

1. Defining your products and services

Clearly and accurately define those products or services as a result of the initial idea. You will need to answer the following questions :

• What product or service will you offer?

• What are the features of these products or services?

• What are the benefits that your products or service will bring to your potential customers?

• What types of additional services will be offered by that product or services

2. Define your market

Clearly, precisely, and unambiguously define the market that you will serve with these products or services. Here are some questions that you as an entrepreneur will need to answer:

• On which market you will offer these products and services?  (city, region, country, continent)

• Who will be the customer of these products or services?

• What are the features of those customers who will consume your products or services?(see, age, income, ethnicity, etc.)

 3. Define your main competitors

It is necessary to precisely define the main competitors who are already on the market that you defined earlier. Here are some questions that you as an entrepreneur will need to answer:

• What are the five most significant market players in the industry in which you categorize your business idea?

• What, where, and how do those five major market players offer their products and services?

• What are the main features of their products or services?

• What are the benefits that they provide to the market with their products or services?

• What is the resistance of the market related to the entry of new competitors and how difficult it can be accomplished?

 4. Define your resources

Lastly, you will need to define the necessary resources you   will need if you want your  idea to become a reality. You will need to define the following :

• How many human resources will you need?

• What kind of intellectual capital will you need for your business?

• How much financial resources will you need?

• Where will you find that financial resources?

• What material resources will you need?

• Where will you find that material resources?

• What information resources will you need?

• What will be the sources of that information resources?

 Note : This article was published as part of a series of articles curated for the 21 Days of Realignment campaign launched by Agenda Women during the 2020 COVID19 Lockdown.