Reclaiming an Old Idea

Quite a few years ago, I got a consulting assignment to evaluate the software and hardware development team for a high tech division of a large corporation.

This division had spent quite a few dollars and lots of time developing a new fax board for PCs.

This was at a time when there were only a few other competitors in this market.

After interviewing all of the engineers and software programmers, I gave them my summary.

They were four months away from delivering the product at the earliest. A competitor was producing a board with identical features, selling it in Byte magazine for $199. In contrast, the bill of material (raw parts cost without assembly) for my client was $249.

I recommended they stop product development, let the staff go, stop their losses.

In the process of the above research I had discovered how they had made their money previously. They were involved in satellite broadcast of information. It was clear that the broadcast business was still viable, they had just grown tired of it and wanted to get into the lucrative PC add-on market.

I recommended they get back into that market.

Within a year they were making more than $5 million and were a leader in the Acres of Diamonds market they had previously abandoned.

Questions to ask yourself:

What business ideas or product ideas have you tried in the past that either failed or decided not to pursue?

Is now a better time to try those out again?

Did you have some key element missing back then that you can now supply?

Is there a new technology, new marketing strategy, a new strategic alliance that you could add to your old idea and make it work today?

About the Author

Dan Swanson is an Internet marketing consultant, who systematically increases qualified traffic and improves conversions of visitors to customers for client’s websites. For more information on his Internet marketing consulting services visit http://www.iq2.com.

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