When you search “Blogs About Ideas” for “Apps For Idea People” one of the least discussed Apps is the most important tool every inventor, entrepreneur and idea person should always have with them. It should have simple and immediate access under most any circumstance.
Why is it so important? Because as soon as you get an idea, no matter how big or small you think it is, you must catch it. Catch it and look at it later. Go over it like it’s the Zapruder Film. Then keep it. ALWAYS KEEP YOUR IDEAS.
So what’s the best and fastest way to do this? I use Evernote. Here’s why: At Cracker Barrel when I’m walking around the gift shop waiting for our table, I always get an idea. I might see a tiny little birdhouse made out of a corn cob and then BAM! My brain says “Hey man, you could make birdhouses that size out of little football helmets for college teams.” I don’t stop to think whether or not it’s a big or small or stupid idea. Here’s what happens next:
1 – I take a picture of the little birdhouse with my phone.
2 – I touch the picture and the little “Email to” thing pops up and I click it.
3 – In the To: box I put ev. This auto-fills the address of my Evernote account to a folder labeled “INCOMING”. In the Subject: box I put idea. In the Email Text I put little football helmet birdhouses.
4 – I hit Send and forget about it.
Then on Friday during my “Review Time” I go to my Evernote account and look in the “INCOMING” folder and see what I’ve collected that week. I sift and sort and put each idea in the folder it belongs in and make decisions about what to do with any ideas that might need immediate attention.
If it’s a situation where the phone service is iffy or if I have only seconds, I’ll fire up my “Notes” app on my phone and just write the idea there until I can get to my Gmail and send it to Evernote safely. If I’m driving, I ALWAYS us my Voice Recorder App and send that audio file to Evernote whenever I reach my destination.
There are many ways to catch ideas quickly. These just happen to be the ways I do. I’d love to hear yours, so tell me how you catch your ideas.
When Buddhist Monks are presented with a problem they have an interesting way of solving it. They focus their mind on the problem for 20 to 30 minutes, then go do something else. Anything else. Completely leaving the problem and the solving alone. Then they wait for the answer to come to them. And it does.
Here’s why: When you focus on solving a problem, your brain understands what is happening. It begins to gather the information you’ve seen, heard and created over the years. Like a 3 pound master puzzler it begins fiddling with the puzzle’s pieces. When you take your mind away from the problem and watch tv, read, go for a walk or run… That’s when “it” starts happening.
Conversations with children, TV shows about cooking or hunting ghosts, watching your dad fix the car, poetry you’ve read and heard, the squirrel that fought off that bird yesterday, the time your grandfather cleaned cow poop off your shoe with his pocket knife and a hose, the time you and your brother made that zip line thing that hooked on to the treehouse and then on to a the bottom of a tree 40 feet away so you could “escape” really fast if you needed to… All of those things are being sifted through and taken apart and put back together in different ways in your subconscious. Scenarios, pictures, actions and thoughts are forming and you have no idea it‘s happening.
Later, as you think of that app you almost bought this morning while on the hopper, your frontal lobe presents the answer with the “Hey look! I found it!” abandon of a 5 year old. Most of the time you will excitedly exclaim “I’ve got it!” or “That’s it!”. (I have never, ever heard anyone yell “Eureka!” while pointing upward when this happened.)
If you have a problem with your new idea, you can’t get it to make noise, something just doesn’t fit or look right, it won’t hook on to what it’s supposed to hook on to and then stay hooked on, whatever the problem. Think about it and try your best to solve it for 20 or 30 minutes. Every 4 to 7 minutes say “Come on brain, you can solve this.” Then go eat a bowl of cereal and watch TV or go to a movie or something. For get about the problem.
A few hours later, while your at the movies or as you’re falling asleep or when you wake up the next morning… BAM! You’ve got it!!! (Word to your mother).
Here are 3 more excellent Apps for idea people, entrepreneurs and inventors.
Skitch – Annotate, edit and share your screenshots and photos.
This is a potent app for your toolbox. You can quickly and easily draw on your photos or sketches. When you realize how many different ways you can use it you’ll continue to be shocked it’s free.
PDF Expert – Fill forms, annotate PDFs.
This is a gotta have for your iPad. Not only does it open just about any text file type, it lets you mark up contracts and even sign with your signature legally.
Keynote – Create world-class presentations quickly and easily.
This is the very best app when it comes to showing investors and licensees what your idea is and does. It’s THE presentation App in the iPad world.
Is My New Idea Really New? Has somebody thought of this already?
The first thing you do when you get an idea for a new product is start Googling. Search for it using every way to describe it you can think of. Describe it out loud using the least amount of words possible. Then Google that. Think of what you might name it and Google that. Check the .com and see if it’s available. If it is being used, is it a company, a product, a blog or what? Is it something similar to your new idea?
What if it is similar to your new idea? So what? Maybe your idea is better than what they have. Maybe it’s bigger and does a lot more. Maybe seeing what they’ve got gives you an idea for something else.
Next, start asking friends and family. Do they know of or have they heard of anything even close to your new idea?
Sometimes a single Googling finds out if the new idea is worth pursuing. There may be somebody in Boston who’s been selling Lobster Attractors to the locals for years making the one you just thought up completely out dated and useless.
I start to relax after I’m 35 to 40 Googles in. I also keep in mind, it doesn’t mean nobody’s thought of it yet. It could mean somebody thought of it 2 weeks ago. Or even 2 years ago and they just haven’t gotten it to market yet. (This is one of the most important reasons to use your inventor’s notebook.)
Researching your new idea is important. So do it. Google it and ask around about it ’til you’re blue in the face.
You don’t want to be on the way home from negotiating a spectacular licensing deal and get a txt from your best friend that reads: Hey, I found a mouse attractor just like yours. It’s called “Mouse C’Mere”. Sorry dude. Your name is still better though – “Here Mousey, Mousey, Mousey!”. Call me.
Having gone through the Jumpstart Foundry process and now being a part of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center as the Entrepreneur In Residence, I thought it would be a good idea to look into the possibility of creating a “Startup Survival Kit” for iPad for the next class of Jumpstart Foundry. I ran it by Michael Burcham. He said ”Sounds great! Check it out, gather all the information you can, then let’s talk about it.”-
The “Kit” would contain 15 to 20 apps specifically dedicated to the needs of a startup going through the Jumpstart Foundry process. Covering everything from the basics of note taking to business model generation.
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I’ve been using a few note taking apps for quite a while so I started there.
The apps on this list have never crashed on me or posed any problems whatsoever. In no particular order, here are the note taking apps I believe to be the very best:
(I’m not putting Notes on this list. It comes installed on the iPad so you don’t have to buy it. However, it’s the most stable, trustworthy note taking and idea catching app period. It isn’t for projects, multi-level note taking or sketching. It’s for catching ideas or taking notes and later moving them to your main notebook.)
1) Penultimate – If you like writing and sketching, this one is simple, to the point and everybody I know has it. I’ve never heard even one complaint about it from anyone I know. It looks good and it looks professional.
2) Circus Ponies Notebook – This one is sturdy. For those who enjoy bells and whistles and details and the lot; here’s your note taking app. It’s backed up by a solid company and nothing is going to accidentally go sideways on you when you get into the intricacies of note taking and project planning.
3) Writings – I use this one when writing a blog post or working on the overview of a project. So I’ve used it many times. It’s excellent for catching an entire idea and expanding on it.
4) Notes Plus – This is like Penultimate’s older, cooler, more mature brother… who likes to type as well as use a pen and sketch. The reports on its stability are the same as Penultimate’s as well; excellent.
5) Notebooks – Ahhh… This is my very best buddy-pal for note taking. It’s so simple, to the point, no bells and whistles to figure out and I think it loves me. Perfect for meetings and situations where it MUST hold up and do as expected. If I had to choose but one note taking app, Notebooks would be it.
If you use something you feel is better than what’s on this list, please let me know. If you have any suggestions for any other apps outside of note taking that would be helpful for a startup survival kit, please let me know about them as well.
I’ve been getting a lot of email asking about my being the Entrepreneur In Residence at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Here’s the press release. I’ll write a post about it soon and explain what it is and what it means.
Guest blogger John Murdock. John is the Director of Communications and Programming at the Entrepreneur Center (EC) in Nashville, TN, where he helps entrepreneurs turn their ideas into investable businesses. Prior to joining the EC, John served as the Airport Manager for Enterprise Holdings, Inc., at PTI airport where he managed the merger of 3 district brands: Alamo, National and Enterprise Rent-A-Car. Unlike some of his peers who get their MBA’s on the internet from a site like MBA Online or similar, John took the difficult route and graduated magna cum laude from Wake Forest‘s Calloway School of Business, with additional minors in Chinese and Global Trade and Commerce Studies.
M Is For… To many it’s just the 13th letter in the alphabet. Sandwiched unsuspectingly between L and N, it earns 3 points in a game of Scrabble, 1000 as a Roman numeral but at the Entrepreneur Center – its value is limited only by your capacity to dream (and execute). It’s the letter M, and it holds the secret to turning your idea into an investable business.
We are sherpas in a concrete wilderness. At the EC, we guide entrepreneurs in their efforts to turn ideas into reality. The specific needs of each entrepreneur vary on a number of factors. We know the process. All entrepreneurs, if they want to get invested, must address the 5 M’s of an investable business: Model, Management, Market, Money,and Momentum.
M1 MODEL: Models over Matter: How does your idea make money?
Big, bulky business plans are out. Sleek, sexy business models are in. Don’t get me wrong – business plans are useful tools and productive exercises for a business. If you want to get an investor’s attention and you start out by giving him a business plan, you might as well give him the trash can to throw it in. It’s not their fault – investors are busy and constantly deluged with more ideas than they could ever invest in. If you want to get their attention, focus on efficiently explaining the highlights of your model: what goods or services you provide, what they cost to provide and what the customers will be paying for them. If you pitch this right, they will be interested enough to look at your business plan.
M2 MANAGEMENT: Don’t do this alone: Who is making the money?
It takes two to tango, three to play Canadian doubles, four to play real doubles and more to launch a business. Launching a business is hard. Very hard. Investors know this and they don’t feel comfortable investing in a startup that doesn’t have the right team in place to accomplish the mission. This doesn’t mean you have to hire 20 people and dilute your ownership to a minority stake before you even receive a dime. It just means that you need to have a strong group of people supporting you. They can be employees, advisors or board members – however, they must bring knowledge and experience relevant to what you are trying to do.
M3 MARKET: What’s your problem? Why will your idea make money?
Every good business needs to solve a market problem. The more defined the problem is and the more aware consumers are of the problem, the better the opportunity for a business to make money delivering a solution. If you figure this out, you then have to make some very tough decisions on how you will define your brand and market its unique features.
M4 MONEY: Show me the money! When does your idea make money?
Like Deep Throat said to Woodward, “Follow the money”. Investors need to see when and how much money will flow in and out of your business. These numbers require a great deal of attention because they will go the furthest in determining what your company is valued at, the amount of money you need to raise, how much that money will cost you and how interested investors are. Grossly misevaluating your financial model and its assumptions can devastate your business quickly, or (even worse) doom it to fail later.
M5 MOMENTUM: Full steam ahead! How far have you gone?
All of the first 4 M’s make a successful business idea. This M asks how far you have taken the first four. The further you have developed your business and the more you have validated your idea, the more appealing you are to investors. Investors worry; ”Will the dogs eat the food?” Even if the dogs will eventually eat the food, how close is the entrepreneur to actually feeding them? Each of the 5 M’s require lots of thought and attention – much more than can be given collectively in a single blog post.
If you can’t address all 5 M’s you don’t have a business. If you can, then it won’t matter what letters, alphabet or words you use. Everyone understands $ and you’ll have it.
-John Murdock, Entrepreneur Center
At the Entrepreneur Center we provide that detail and guidance for each entrepreneur. For more information visit our site. You can contact me at John.Murdock@EntrepreneurCenter.com or check out my EC blog at http://entrepreneurcenter.com/blog/ec/all.
I’ve posted about the startup accelerator program created by the Nashville Entrepreneur Center called Jumpstart Foundry. In a nutshell it’s this:
In 14 weeks: An investable story – A business model – A product – Customers
The leader of Jumpstart Foundry is the president and CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center, Michael Burcham. One of the most important things he brings into your startup’s life is “The 5 M’s”. While I was talking with John Murdock, the Director of Communications at the EC (Entrepreneur Center), The 5 M’s came up. John writes the EC’s blog. I asked him if he would be a guest blogger here at The IdeaBang Blog and write a post about the M’s. He said he would love to.
So, this Monday we’re gonna get the low down on The 5 M’s from someone with an in-depth understanding of what they are, where they came from and how they can help product developers like us get our products developed and into the market place. You won’t want to miss it.
The idea for this post came about when friend of mine, Chris Jaeger, showed me a list titled ”10 Funding Quotes Every Entrepreneur Should Skip”.
Chris and I participated in the Nashville Entrepreneur Center‘s Jumpstart Foundry program. His startup company is called RentStuff.com. Our startup company is called GoodJob. For 14 weeks our pitches and business models were pummeled, stomped, dissected, chopped up, gut-punched and everything this side of b*%ch-slapped by Michael Burcham, the president and CEO of the Nashville Entrepreneur Center. Don’t get me wrong. We thank The Lord for that experience everyday because now our pitches and business models are clean, shiny, fast and powerful like high-performance Indy Race cars. That’s why we find the list so humorous.
I started reading the list out loud while imitating Chris’s voice when he pitches RentStuff.com and he started laughing. The pitch was just the 10 quotes. Nothing else. I didn’t even say what the product was, but it applied to any and every startup pitch we knew. If you haven’t done 14 weeks at Jumpstart Foundry or another accelerator or incubator, you’re probably not going to find this even the least bit humorous. If you have, here’s a trip down memory lane. If you haven’t… pay attention. It may not sound bad now, but it will about 4 days into Jumpstart.
The Elevator Pitch That Ensures You Won’t Get Funding by Scott Rouse
“This really is a disruptive technology and our research shows its market will be $40 billion in less than 2 years. We’re not worried about Apple and Microsoft. They’re way too big and slow to be any threat at all. Therefore, we have no competitors to keep us from getting that first-mover advantage. Obviously all we need is a piddly 1% of the market. Even though our proven management team has provided fairly conservative projections, they’re powerful enough to convince a world-class CEO to climb on board after funding. And oh yeah, the interest we’re getting from some major-players and customers doesn’t surprise us at all… Here’s my card… E me and let’s do this.” (Then hold your fist up for a fist-bump and wink).
You have a working prototype of your new product in one hand and the name of the person to pitch it to in the other. What do you do next?
A – Send that person an email with a photo and description of your product?
B – Show up at their door and try to get a meeting?
C – Send them the prototype?
Don’t do any of these. They lead to a dead-end… EVERY TIME.
The #1 rule for pitching your new product is: Always pitch in person. I’ve never heard of or met anyone who mailed or emailed photos and a product description or a prototype to a company and got a licensing deal. You must do it in person. If you can’t, then get someone who deals in that world professionally to do it for you.
The IdeaBang Blog
Scott Rouse
As the Entrepreneur In Residence at The Nashville Entrepreneur Center, I meet people with great ideas every day. An idea for a toy, medical device, weapon or an app. Or maybe an idea for babies, sports, travel or pets. Most are truly great. Getting that great idea protected, prototyped and licensed or sold and in an analog or digital store is the goal. Helping you do that is the focus of the IdeaBang Blog.
Nanny Goodnight
