Product Description

"... the vast numbers of books devoted to the subject... have done little to improve the situation... Andrew and Mary Bragg's Developing New Business Ideas might just be the book to change much of this...  If this book can help investors and would-be entrepreneurs in this area it will do not just them, but also the economy as a whole a great service."    Roger Trapp, Independent on Sunday

"Developing New Business Ideasis a truly original book, with a fabulous blend of lessons and inspiring real business stories. Most importantly, it demonstrates in a practical and easy to understand manner how to put creativity and innovation into action." - Lord Bilimoria CBE DL, founder and Chief Executive, Cobra Beer

At some time in their life, almost everyone in business has an idea for a new enterprise.

The idea might be sparked by dissatisfaction with an existing product, experiencing something new while traveling or simply finding that nobody in the market is serving your particular need.  The idea could be for a new venture for your business to launch, or for new business of your own.  But most ideas remain just that: ideas.

We struggle to develop them, wondering if they will work, why nobody has already thought of them and how we could ever turn them into a profitable reality.

How do you take a promising thought and develop it into an enterprise worth backing?

That is the question that this book sets out to answer.  In Developing New Business Ideas, Andrew and Mary Bragg provide a practical guide to creating, shaping, evaluating, refining and implementing new business ideas.

The book demonstrates that it is within absolutely everybody’s power to take the first germ of a business idea and to systematically creatively challenge and commercially develop that idea into a viable business opportunity.  Using a practical four-step creative process, Developing New Business Ideas offers a wide-range of hands-on, how-to-actually-do-it techniques to help you add value and viability to your original idea.  It will also introduce you to the experiences of a range of today’s successful entrepreneurs, enabling you to learn from the creative lessons that they learned as they built their businesses.

Supported by its own set of online tools, Developing New Business Ideas is an imaginative and interactive companion to converting creativity into successful enterprise.

"Having had your bright, fresh, original idea, the really hard part is turning it into successful reality.  By detailing four structured steps to developing saleable products or services from that first idea, this excellent and imaginative guide significantly simplifies that task.  Essential reading for all would-be entrepreneurs".

Trevor Baylis OBE, the inventor of the clockwork radio.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #150979 in Books
• Published on: 2005-05-05
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 266 pages

Review

"... the vast numbers of books devoted to the subject... have done little to improve the situation... Andrew and Mary Bragg's Developing New Business Ideas might just be the book to change much of this...  If this book can help investors and would-be entrepreneurs in this area it will do not just them, but also the economy as a whole a great service."    Roger Trapp, Independent on Sunday

"Etrepreneurship is the lifeblood of business – the embodiment of an idea’s potential.

But too many ideas – and too many companies – flounder and fail because they are not developed properly. You might have an idea that will change the marketplace forever, but it is no more than a dream or a fantasy if you cannot make it work.

The Braggs’ book shows how to take that first naked idea, that aspiration, and shape it into a form that can be successfully put into action. They show clearly how creativity can and should be applied to every single stage of the idea development process, and use a helpful step by step process to help you turn your idea into entrepreneurial reality.

Developing New Business Ideasis a truly original book with a fabulous blend of lessons and inspiring real business stories. Most importantly, it demonstrates in a practical and easy to understand manner how to put creativity and innovation into action."

Lord Bilimoria CBE DL, founder and Chief Executive, Cobra Beer

"Having had your bright, fresh, original idea, the really hard part is turning it into successful reality. By detailing four structured steps to developing saleable products or services from that first idea, this excellent and imaginative guide significantly simplifies that task. Essential reading for all would-be entrepreneurs."
Trevor Baylis OBE, the inventor of the clockwork radio

"Andrew and Mary Bragg have assembled a fascinating and formidable cast of entrepreneurial thought-masters to demonstrate the power of their own effective and crystal-clear principles of idea generation, development and implementation - lessons that anyone can exploit. Their book is a wonderful read which is a powerful idea - or rather set of interlinked ideas - in itself. Read, enjoy, learn, do - and profit."
Robert Heller, management writer and founding editor ofManagement Today

"If you are eager to leave the corporate rat-race for an entrepreneurial journey, the Braggs' Chapter Four is your ticket out. Thanks to this book, finding a viable new business idea just got easier."

"Developing New Business Ideas forges a unique and powerful link between creativity and innovation. Many innovation models begin with a new business concept and proceed to describe what steps must be taken to develop, evaluate, and bring the concept to market. It is almost as if such models assume new business concepts are ripe for the picking and that successful innovation relies primarily on analysis and implementation.

Bragg and Bragg highlight how creativity is essential to the ‘front-end’ of the innovation process. They explain how the creative process can be explicitly employed to identify business opportunities and to develop original ideas in response to such opportunities. These real-life stories, in combination with an array of practical creativity tools, render this book both an enjoyable read and profoundly useful.

has the potential to help many people realise their dreams."

"Here is a way of thinking that will enable the reader not just to generate new business ideas but, perhaps more importantly, to see opportunities, initiate change and cope with uncertainty. This is what entrepreneurship is really about. A way of thinking and behaving that enables people to see opportunities and innovate.

Mary and Andrew Bragg ‘break the mould’ with a book that is not about entrepreneurship and the functional business competences of the entrepreneur, but instead educates the reader for entrepreneurship by developing the right-brain attributes of the successful entrepreneur."

Jim Bodoh, Director, Lloyd Northover, branding and design specialists

John Child, Professor of Commerce, Birmingham Business School

Professor John Mullins, London Business School, author of The New Business Road Test
"Thanks to this book, finding a viable new business idea just got easier."

Gerard J. Puccio, Ph.D., Chair and Professor, International Center for Studies in Creativity, Buffalo State College - State University of New York
"Developing New Business Ideas has the potential to help many people realise their dreams."

Customer Reviews

Does exactly what it says on the tin
This is an excellent book that does exactly what it says on the tin.

It doesn’t start off with the assumption you find in most other books that you’ve got a fully-fledged business idea and all you’ve got to do is write the business plan.

Instead, it shows you how to cultivate your first idea into a viable business opportunity.

The writers have used a simple four-stage model to structure the process. Because the book is written around this model, with case-studies and examples to back up the argument, it is easy to follow. The writing itself is very clear. In fact, it makes more sense than most of the other so-called specialist books on creativity I’ve come across put together.

The focus on getting the idea right, and not rushing in with the first idea you’ve got, was reassuring.

The techniques shown are very practical and I can see that you could pick and choose from them to suit all sorts of different situations.

There’s a lot of women entrepreneurs highlighted, which is also good.

The book has certainly helped my approach to starting a business – I just wish I had come across it before.

It's about putting Ideas into Action
I believe this book can contribute a lot of value to those wishing to bridge the gap between creative inventor and commercial entrepreneur. It cites numerous case studies that do exemplify many points, although to be fair it does seem to be quite repetitive and high-level in places.

Despite this, the subject can be difficult to address and the authors have done a good job of it. In the most part, it is easy to consume, perhaps a little simplistic for my own selfish needs.

Regardless of points of view, the onus is clearly on the reader to interpret and action this recollection and guidance in an effective manner. Particularly effective for helping individuals that are unsure what to do next with their ideas.

A real treasure....
This book is a revelation. I was a bit ruffled by the price but it is worth every penny.

The 'Bragg' process for idea generation is detailed in a stepwise, logical and comprehensive manner. The book is well laid out and the methods described are so intuitive, once you have been shown, that ideas seem to present themselves often without even 'trying'. The main problem has been keeping up with ideas fast enough to allow a thorough investigation into their feasibility before moving on to the next idea which presents itself. The excellent anecdotes on real-life business successes (e.g Dyson, 'Nike') are really inspirational.

I am almost reluctant to recommend this book for fear of being pipped to a lucrative business idea! A real treasure....