Is your IDEA a Business OPPORTUNITY ?

All of us get ideas [many of them daily get plenty of ideas ] and feel that we can create a business out of it, but many of those ideas cannot be transformed into businesses. May be some don't make any Business sense at all, some cannot be taken up full-time [ but may be help you in getting some additional income].

Blogging is a good example; it can be thought of as a hobby or a past-time or a way to Change the World , but very difficult to go full time into blogging May be this question would be rightly answered by any of the full-time bloggers in the Blogosphere.

There are a couple of ideas that each and every one of us work on , but very few of them can materialize into a full-time startup.

In my current read Harvard Business Essentials , Jeffry Timmons; a leading expert on Entrepreneurship has highlighted 5 Characteristics that any Business Opportunity [ Product/Service ] should possess to certify it as a business.

1. Creates significant value for customers by solving a significant problem or filling a significant unmet need for which they are willing to pay the premium.
2. Offers significant potential to the Entrepreneur and investors - enough to meet their risk/reward expectations.
3. Represents a good fit with the capabilities of the founder and the management team i.e. something in which they have the experience or the skills to pursue.
4. Is durable - the opportunity for profits will persist over a reasonable length of time - something that is not based on a momentary craze or a need that will quickly disappear.
5. Opportunity that might be eligible for financing.Though the funding scene is very different, yet a commercial idea at least gets the eyes of investors [ if not all, at least few of them ]

Reader Contribution:

1. An article covered in Forbes : Is your great idea a real business [Thanks Nithya Dayal]
2. Few of the points that I missed are:
Passion and Patience of the Entrepreneurial team [Thanks Manoj Awasthi]