Level 6 - Validate and assess your idea - The Straight Up Business Institute

[visitor course_id=”26514″]

Learn more and unlock the lessons below now!
Or, if you are registered, be sure to sign back in »

[/visitor]

[course_complete]

It looks like you’ve finished this level. Well done!
Be sure to check out the add-ons »

[/course_complete]

Welcome to Level 6 of the Idea Maker Course!

Can you get past every so-called expert’s opinion and actually assess your own ideas in a reliable way? You bet you can. Can you track the progress of your idea like an athlete tracks their progress? Yes again.

In many ways, this is where the rubber really hits the road. It’s where you learn to validate and assess your own idea in consistent and repeatable ways. It’s an absolutely key step in becoming the defacto worldwide expert of what you’ve been working on for so long. And it’s where you’ll learn how ‘good’ your idea really is – or isn’t.

1	We’ve been talking for a long time now about the impact and feasibility of your idea …

Now it’s time to figure out how impactful and feasible it really is.

This is a capstone lesson in the Idea Maker Course and it’s meant to guide you in becoming the expert of your own idea. You’ll have feedback in hand from others and, if you’ve been doing your job, you’ll have been making your own notes and calling into question your own idea for several levels by now.

Now it’s time to translate all of that information into a place on the impact and feasibility chart. To figure out where it lies so you can drive future iterations of your work. Even, to start building multiple versions of your idea that you can assess, validate, and make better.

Again so you’re investing your time, energy, and money into the right thing.

As you’ll see, the process includes using our Idea Slide Rules to translate all that qualitative goodness at your fingertips into a quantitative score and position on the chart. It involves assessing things in a way that makes sure you can trust yourself without fooling yourself. And it involves translating the result into tangible next steps.

At the outset, we teach this topic by building on the examples we saw when you learned about the strategic pivot. Then we guide you through the process of doing it for yourself and for a portfolio of candidate “best” future versions of your idea.

Get started by checking out these opening thoughts:

2	Get your hands on the tools

Get some Idea Slide Rules

Our slide rules have opened the eyes of new entrepreneurs, seasoned corporate innovators, and everyone in between. They’re designed to help you with the mechanics of figuring out how impactful and feasible your idea is.

If you haven’t already, then there are four ways to get a set of these super handy tools:

Download, cut, paste, and assemble your own using these instructions »
Purchase the iOS version here »
Purchase a hardcopy set of just the Idea Slide Rules for yourself here »
Purchase the whole Idea Design Kit here » which contains the Idea Slide Rules

Pull out your Critique Pad

We know you’ve likely been using it all along, to understand what you’re trying to do and as a sort of yard stick. But now it’s time to get serious about self-assessment using the Critique Pad.

Make sure you’ve got a copy in front of you.

This PDF is best printed on Tabloid paper (11 x 17 inches in size). It’s also part of the Idea Design Kit.

3	Take in the lessons below!

Then click through the lessons below when you’re ready to step back, take an even deeper look at your idea, and deliberately improve your odds of success!