Question: How can smart entrepreneurs turn their brilliant ideas into successful companies? Answer: By understanding their limitations and knowing where to go to find help. Trendlines Senior Project Manager, Naomi Alper, points the way.
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 As a mature project manager with a variety of careers behind me, I still learn something new every day in any number of different areas. In the years immediately after graduation from university, I felt that I knew everything I needed to know about life. Some time before I reached the age of 30, however, I realized that I was making decisions and carrying out actions based on things that I had experienced in the previous few years — things that I had learned since the time I "knew everything." The older I got, the more I came to appreciate what "experience" meant, and I began to understand the value of other people's advice.
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| A Good Idea Doesn't Necessarily Lead to Success |
A similar phenomenon occurs in the business world. Start-up companies are often run by young entrepreneurs who are experts in their field and have great products or ideas. These enterprising scientists or engineers successfully develop complex products — products that must then be successfully marketed. The entrepreneurs can suddenly find themselves faced with making decisions and taking action in areas beyond their immediate area of expertise. To ensure the success of their product, a sound marketing strategy and plan are needed, things that may be totally unfamiliar to an expert in microprocessors or genetic engineering. But once entrepreneurs acknowledges their limitations, they too, can begin to learn from various sources of experience, both on- and offline.
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| Where to Turn for Help and Advice |
There are a variety of resources available to the fledgling entrepreneur:
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| |  | Incubators provide startup companies with a sound launching pad. Experienced incubator staff offer valuable advice and information. These Trendlines articles explain more about the characteristics of the most successful entrepreneurial firms and whether a business incubator suits your company:
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| | | Incubators Provide Safe Environment for Start-Ups
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| | | You the Inventor
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Learn more about the incubator program in Israel.
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Governments are only too happy for businesses to succeed and offer advice and support at different levels.
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The Israel Export & International Cooperation Institute sponsors numerous courses and seminars.
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| | | The Ministry for Industry, Trade and Labor offers a range of information for small businesses and seminars.
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| | | Private consultants can often provide an objective overview of the company and an ability to sort out marketing issues from technology or production concerns.
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| | | Mentors — individuals who have been in the company's business, or a closely related one, for many years and have since retired or sold their own business — can be an excellent source of wisdom. These people have valuable time to devote to others, either for a fee or shares in the company. Having a mentor on the board of directors is often a real asset for a start-up company.
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| | | The Internet offers some excellent free sources of marketing advice including advertising, marketing and PR advice for small businesses, monthly newsletters. The Wharton School of Business of the University of Pennsylvania maintains an extremely informative website called Knowledge@Wharton.
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A new company with a tight budget may hesitate to spend money for marketing advice while it is still struggling to overcome technical difficulties or production problems. But it must be remembered that even the best product is not worth anything if there is no customer for it — and reaching the customer is what marketing is all about. An understanding of the company's market, what it wants and how to reach it, early in a company's life can prevent costly mistakes and heartache later on.
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| Recommended Reading |
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The Trendletter team welcomes your comments.
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Naomi Alper
Senior Project Manager
The Trendlines Group
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