Proof of Concept: The First Real Test On Your Way to Starting Business

If you have tried to find financing to start your own business, you might have come across the term ‘proof of concept’ – where the financiers demand such proof of concept before they can advance you with financing to start a new business.
Proof of concept is not a hard term to relate with as it first sounds.
Proof of concept, as it turns out, is having paying customers to show for your business. Now the hard thing about all this is that developing a business idea from the comfort of your house might be easy enough as might be developing a business plan around it – all these being things which you and your alone do. But in order for you to get the proof of concept in the way of paying customers, you need to not only convince someone that you have a viable business idea – but actually make a product, (and a marketable product at that) out of that business idea, and then get someone to buy that product as proof of concept.
While the key to developing an effective business plan might be imagination, the key to passing the ‘proof of concept’ test on your way to starting business lies in consistent marketing and networking, if you are to get someone to buy the new product you have developed, and thereby earn proof of concept. Now marketing as carried out at this stage is quite different from marketing as it usually carried out, given that at this point you probably won’t have the budget for an elaborate marketing campaign, and you have to rely on direct selling for the product you have developed – mainly through networking (maybe presenting yourself at exhibitions for the new product you have developed) but as long as you new business idea is geared towards meeting an important need in the society, someone is bound to buy it – and therefore give you the proof of concept which financiers might require of you.