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 This is not just about new inventions or radical pioneering ideas. If your business depends on changing standard practice ever so slightly then this adds further challenges to achieving your business goals.
Six Questions:
1. Might you describe business offering as leading edge?
2. Do you say that you have no direct competitors?
3. Have you ever used the words ‘radical change’ in describing your offerings?
4. Will your business change the structure of the industry, even slightly?
5. Do you welcome a competitor’s marketing campaigns because they are making the concept more acceptable?
6. Does making money depend on changing consumer habits?
If you can say “YES” to any of the above, then you will be likely faced with greater challenges in developing your business.
The Challenges:
1. Identifying your revenue streams and pricing models
- Will people pay directly for your product or service?
- Putting imminent revenue aside, briefly, what core value are you building? That is, are you creating something that other businesses might make money from? Is it a loyal customer base? Is it technical intellectual property?
- If you cant achieve sufficient revenue from those using your service, can you gain revenue from those targeting a similar customer base? Can you sell them other products or services? Does advertising revenue make sense?
- For possible pricing models, seek comparables from similar business models and/or indirect competitors
2. Double the sales effort: The Concept and the Service
- Do you need to explain your business idea in every sale?
- Particularly if the benefits are less measurable, you need to get over the ‘quack’ factor
- When trying to make a sale, you need the prospective client to buy into the concept first of all and then to buy from you
3. Avoiding being stomped by a big player
- If what you’re selling threatens revenues of large indirect competitors, beware of being too prominent too soon until you’ve gotten a foothold in the market.
- You might decide to chip away at the early adopters in the market to build up sufficient credibility and track-record and then to attack the greater market.
4. Winning initial reference sites
- No one wants to eat in an empty restaurant. So do the happy hour, work hard to win your initial customers and prove your service.
- You need to remove risks from the buying decisions of future customers. Solid evidence of a track record is hard to beat.
5. Validating your business
- Customers paying for and endorsing your service validates it above all else
- Partner endorsement validates
- Investment from a known industry leader validates
- Accreditation, Certification of recognised bodies validates
- PR, Celebrity endorsement and other strong promotional activities also validates
6. Forecasting according to early adopters?
- Early Adopters buy new into ideas faster than others.
- Do you ramp up your business based on sales successes to Early Adopters?
- Be aware of the length of the period from market entry to market acceptance and the costs of doing so
7. Raising Investment
- Investment organisations analyse business plans according to Return on Investment including Risks in achieving business goals. New ideas add risk but also may offer a high return.
- Private Investors with knowledge of your industry make decisions based more on instinct and experience, but the appetite for high risk varies.
Example: Broadband in Ireland
Despite vast amounts of time and money being spent on marketing, promotional offers and government support schemes, Ireland is still slow on the take-up of Broadband.
Broadband providers are of all sizes as the market possesses few barriers to entry. There is much distrust in the market as people do not know what they are buying and services can be poor from many providers.
Dominant players are difficult to displace as it takes time to move people from what they know already AND many don’t see the benefits clearly enough.
It takes time, layer by layer from early adopters back to the luddites.
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Referrals are a great source of new business but may not build your business fast enough to suit your goals. 
This is a companion post to this months 
A business will invest more money where the return is more tangible. Improving production efficiencies is tangible. Reducing material handling and shipping costs is tangible. Tangible returns are much easier to calculate with investments in Core Production. 
