Sunday night my friends and I had a “wing it” moment where we just decided on the spot to go see a movie. On the way TO the movie, one of my friends started complaining about a certain aspect of his company/job. He’s a Director level position at a Credit Union.

Well, it just so turns out that what he’s complaining about, our company has an expertise in! Perhaps not *specifically* in the “banking” industry, but the general technology and know-how of how to resolve his big pain-point, we have it!

That immediately got me thinking…why not?

Could this be another way to use our existing technology and team talent to access a completely different market with a completely different service?

- In short, that was Sunday night, it’s now Tuesday morning, 11:30 AM - I’ve had 5 phone calls between advisers and team members.

- I’ve met with that friend TWICE since then to iron out bringing his company has a possible beta test client.

- I’ve spent countless hours researching the market - even found some competition (which is a good thing).

- I’ve done an expense chart to see what we would have to charge to be profitable.

- I’ve got a full t0-do list that I need to approach to finalize my market research.

Yes, THAT is a true entrepreneur right there. I got an idea and I MOVED on it, at least for research.

Now, the only part I have to be careful for is that my enthusiasm does not hurt us. I have to make sure I do ALL my research and strategize appropriately. Right now may not be the best time to get my team involved in something completely different. Also, one of my advisers was not excited about the idea at all, his exact comment was:

“These kinds of companies suck…”

He’s a very smart and well rounded businessman who has been on many boards and has helped raise money for many companies, so I do listen to his opinion. But of course, the entrepreneur in me still says “I’ll do my own research to see if I can’t change that …”

Either way, market research and taking your TIME to understand the idea is critical - don’t just jump off and start something.

In our case, we have our hands full with what we already do and a distraction could be a bad “CEO decision” - remember, my post about “The Conflict of an Entrepreneur and CEO.” However, at the same time, I’m excited that I got my head to think outside the box.

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THIS is how and why companies have “spin-offs” or “sister companies.” Your knowledge, technology and team could very well fit like a charm in a completely different field than yours - have you thought about that? 

Just remember, don’t spread yourself too thin - stick to a dedicated plan and work on that. But, if there is room/money/resources to expand, why not try it? 

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Tags: products, re-purposing

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 13th, 2008 at 2:49 pm and is filed under Building A Company. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.