Ideation to Execution: Forget the Top Step, Worry About the Next Step

“Ideas are a dime a dozen,” as the old adage goes. The hard part is what to do with an idea once you have it. Talking with more and more entrepreneurs, it’s clear: execution is key.

Yes, coming up with a good idea (especially one people are willing to pay you for) can be tough, but without execution, it remains simply that—an idea. For many of us, coming up with an idea is where the journey ends. We think ‘oh, that’d be nice if this existed to solve X problem’, and there it dies.

Entrepreneurs are those that go beyond the niceties, pushing forward into the reality of what it takes to make the idea an actuality. As Jarrod Morgan, co-founder of ProctorU, explains too many people get stuck looking at the top step or end goal of an idea before asking themselves what it would take just to get to the next step.

Ideation comes in many forms, but what does it take to really turn an idea into a business?