Customer Reviews

Will It Fly? How to Know if Your New Business Idea Has Wings...Before You Take the Leap

5 star:		(11)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I have been in and around start ups for years now, most recently as a senior executive of a security software company. I have read more books on entrepreneurship than I can remember and I concentrated on entrepreneurship in business school. I have never seen a book as penetrating, practical and on target as this one for the topic that it addresses.

What makes this book different is:

- it is the only one that thoroughly addresses a start up at concept phase, before your business plan, a partner, money or anything else. Every other entrepreneurial book starts after you've decided you have a good idea or devotes a token chapter that tells you to do market research. This book actually steps you through evaluating and modifying your idea to make it fly.

- it provides a practical thorough checklist, with detailed explanations, to evaluate a product/business concept quickly and completely and on how to improve the ratings if your business idea doesn't fly the first time around. What makes this checklist even more valuable is that the criteria are based upon the real-world entrepreneurial experiences of the author.

- it gets you to focus on your gut-feelings about your idea. If you think you have a good idea - the spreadsheets all work out - but your gut feelings tell you that all is not well, this book will help you identify why and guide you on how to fix it.

- it will tell you if your business idea is a bad one - before you spend a dime. Better be sure you're not "pretending not to know".

- it shows you how to do a first-pass evaluation of any idea in 20 minutes or less, without doing a bunch of premature research.

My only complaint is that Tom started teaching at Columbia Business School in 1996 and I graduated in 1990, so I missed him by six years.

If you're going to start your own company, take a job at a start up or young company, fund a start up or launch a new product or service, buy this book.

I launched a computer consulting business in 2000, at the worst possible time--budgets were being cut, layoffs were constant, government funds were "on hold", and new prospects were not moving, based on "wait & see" hold--all contributing to a death nell to my new firm. While my first two years were profitable, my contract-to-contract business was clearly not sustainable. "Will It Fly" enabled me to completely re-invent my firm to focus on a growth market that would provide extended play for long-term growth: "Homeland Security Consulting". Using the scorecard, I identified the opportunities in this new area that would leverage our strengths and experience, but take advantage of new opportunities for pursuit. In the space of 6 months, I now have three channel deals under contract, with sustained revenues forecast for 4Q03, growing by 20% over the next 18 months. The 44 scorecard planning factors from this book, provided criteria for finetuning the plan, addressing key service delivery details, and ensuring honest self assessment of strength and weaknesses, to provide the confidence to strike in this new direction. With its new direction, my firm focused on an early success that has created the foundation of sustained returns to come over time. I recommend this book highly to anyone who is about to start, or kick-start, a company, and who is driven to make it succeed against seemingly tall odds.

This book, written by an inspring mentor, will not only inspire your great idea to come to life; it will provide the framework and guidelines to direct your ideas into a viable business venture."Will it Fly" clearly and concisely makes you think seriously about your new business and motivates you to put your best foot forward in the marketplace.

I would give this a 7 on a 5 point scale. This author presents a list of 44 criteria that you should consider in any new business start up. Its one of those matrix scoring systems -- which you'd never use to make a critical decision, like choosing your spouse. So, why would you use it for your business start up?

THIS ONE IS DIFFERENT because of the authors extensive experience. His practicality and experience glows through the simple math weightings. You see the why and the how of each criteria. And, you can see that they have been tested on many previous business ideas and start ups.

You can use this system to evaluate the likelihood of success of your new venture... or you can use it to tune it up. I found using the system to evaluate several business ideas at once to be very helpful.

I particularly enjoyed the author's reasoning on the weights applied to each of the criteria.

THIS IS A REQUIRED BOOK for anyone starting up a new business. Its very practical, usable, and easy to apply.

John Dunbar
Sugar Land, TX

I'm one of those many Columbia students that Tom McKnight mentions in the introduction. Having survived his class 5 years ago, I jumped and bought a copy when I saw he'd distilled his teachings into a book.

You won't be disappointed. The magic of Tom's wisdom is that he boils down each concept to a catchy phrase, and those fun phrases anchor the ideas. After reading the book, you'll find that each business you think about triggers a bunch of "happy factors" "cash flow now" "hot market" etc etc etc. If you don't think you need this, read page 261 onwards: "pretending not to know." Let that chapter ring in your ear, and keep you straight!

In any case, 5 years later, I still find Tomisms jumping into my thoughts at every corner. Reading the book was a great experience - it refreshed the elements I had forgotten about, and I learned several new ones. Similar to a Anthony Robbins seminar... you will never be the same!!!

The book is also like a Tony Robbins seminar in another way. You don't have to work too hard at it. Just read the book, and you'll find the language creeping into your brain on its own. Facing a business challenge, unemployed, etc? This book will squeeze you through your own fears and limitations and make you a winner.

I hate to do this but it only deserves a 2 out of 5. Why, I hear you ask. Because it's unreadable. For example, there is no table of contents to give you any clue as to where the book is headed. There is also something about the writing that just makes you put it down for a very long time after each 5 page chapter.

I'm a voracious reader especially of business books on entrepreneurship. But this is just unreadable. After having it for close to a year, I have only read about a third of the 44 chapters.

I bought the book because I wanted guidelines to start a small business. I was really excited because I thought I had found the key to all my doubts and questions. The more I read the book the more frustrated I got. I have an MBA and I know how complex a business could be, but this is too much. 44 variables maybe could count on a BIG BIG launch, but what if you want to start a small dojo or a small language academy? The more I read the more frustrated and dissapointed I got. I believe that in my particular case I bought the wrong book.

My husband and I and many of our friends are on the leading edge of the Baby Boom Generation - huge, powerful, successful, and often feared for the trends and traits that we collectively might perpetrate. Many of us plan to "retire" early, but only from our high stress/high profile professions of today. We're young, we're healthy, and we're energetic. And, yes, we're egotistical While some of us may continue to work in the corporate world at least part time, others will determine that the time is right to launch out on our own.

We need Tom McKnight's book - his experience and wisdom - to guide us into the next stage of our lives, as entrepreneurs.

The author walks you through the thought process of evaluating whether your bright idea could become a viable business, with his application of fine detail, giving examples that clearly illustrate, and with analogies that sometimes surprise you. His Innovator's Scorecard with its 44 critical success factors makes good sense, and the suggestions are actionable. Besides, it's enjoyable reading. The author seems to be having such fun with words, and with Dr. Market, his wise owl.

Being a Librarian who has a passion for reading, I'm often asked - both professionally and socially - to research various topics and recommend books to satisfy the inquiry, curiosity, and/or quest for knowledge. Tom McKnight's book is a great find. I already have an extra copy on hand to give to any friend who hints at wanting to start his/her own business.

The idea in this book is this: You assess your business against 44 simple criteria. If the business does not score high against any of the criteria, modify the business model so the score improves.

The criteria are very simple. You are asked questions like these (I am not giving the exact criteria here):
* Do you have proven customer?
* Do you have the necessary capital tied up?
* Is your competition easy to tackle?

Against each question, you do self-scoring. For example,
* If the capital is yet to be tied up, you give yourself low score and start working towards tying up the capital (so you can improve the score).
* If you have tough competitors, you look for a niche to hide from them or add more ammunition (money, skills, protection) before going to the battle

By the time you have finished massaging your business (or business idea) to deserve good scoring, you would have finished giving it a new and far superior shape.

I read this book several years ago. Ever since, I had studiously applied these filters on every one of my new business ideas. It had always helped me to identify bottle necks and hidden land mines and remove them before going to the market place.

It is unbelievable how a simple, no-brainer exercise can be this effective.

Will it fly? Not on Kindle. The Kindle edition of this book is unreadable. By unreadable I mean there are portions of the text you can not get to show up. Adjust the text size switch to landscape, do what you may they won't show up. This is my experience with the Kindle 2.