Great concept needing help
I spoke in my post about Lighter Steps, that I am frequently presented with interesting business opportunities in which people ask me to get involved. Last week, on March 21, I was approached by two really nice guys, Ralph Stamper and Ron Powell, who had invented a way of eliminating the noise of rainfall on conservatory roofs.
The only problem they had was that they felt they were inventors and didn’t have the skills to set up the business to take this concept to market. That was fairly refreshing to hear, because the inventors of a concept can often be determined to be the business brains behind it, without realising that it takes an entirely different skill set.
I met them first at Mentor Magic on the Wednesday, and on the Saturday we met again for me to carry out an entire tyre kicking exercise. I needed to satisfy myself if these guys were the real deal and whether their product was the real thing. Was it saleable? I.e. was the price they’d charge realistic and was there sufficient profit margin? The next questions were over patents and the quality of installation, i.e. does it look right. They passed that test, and I arranged to meet them the following morning, Sunday, to view an installation.
It looked pretty good and I was even more impressed to find out that, as well as solving the problem of rainfall, their product solves the problem of overheating from sunlight. The roof covering looks neat, and barely diminishes light transmission.
So, that made it a green light and, as I travelled overseas the next day, I was able to draft an outline business plan to move this forward. Priority was to create the team to take the business forward, second was to seek the investment the business needs and third, start thinking about how to market the product.
Really, it’s the latter that is my prime expertise and the bit I enjoy most. Their website is www.silentroofsystems.com, and that will be what I attend to first. Watch this space and I’ll take you through the steps we go down to get this exciting product to market.
Tags: Business Opportunity, Business, Mentoring
