Entrepreneurship Lecture by Dr. Duah
“We should not jump into execution of our ideas, rather we should find answers to “how viable, profitable and sustainable is the idea?”
On September 3, 2021, at the Masterclass for Young Entrepreneurs at CCC - Kumasi, with The Deputy Minister of Finance, Hon. Dr. John Kumah, Esq., and other distinguished speakers, the CEO/Chief Consultant of Xtart Biz, Dr. Evans Duah, gave a lecture as the keynote speaker on the topic “Ideas to Product”.
In the course of his lecture, attendees were made to realise the need of exploring all the possibilities of an idea before jumping into execution. Dr. Duah posed the question that “Would an architect design without exploring the building site? or, would a civil engineer build without a building plan?”. He continued to state that it is in the same way that as young entrepreneurs we do not make the mistake of jumping our ideas straight into execution.
According to Dr. Duah, most people after dreaming and conceiving an idea do not move to the next step, that is DEVELOPING the idea. He asserted that it is the final product or service that the entrepreneur sells and not the idea. He added, “even though an idea can be stolen and commercialised sometimes, it is when the idea is developed into a project, product or service that it becomes marketable”. He emphasised that it may not necessarily be how big or small the idea is, rather how developed and functional the idea becomes.
Idea Development according to Dr. Duah, constitutes conceptualising one’s idea into main ideas. He explained further that it is expanding and giving a clear framework to the idea. That is, at this stage it is no more an idea, but the status changes to a project. “As a project, it has preliminary works, works during the time of execution and future projections after execution”, he said.
His lecture again revealed that one may start with the idea generation or formulation but then s/he would have to screen the idea(s) including its ensuing possibilities and conceptualise for initial testing. The person would then proceed to business analysis such as competitor and industry analyses and afterwards develop a prototype. Finally, as he opined the person then proceeds to test the market and then commercialise the product.
In conclusion, Dr. Duah summed it up by saying “we do not jump into execution of our ideas, rather we find answers to “how viable, profitable and sustainable is the idea?”.
