Do you have a business idea and no real way of knowing how good or bad the idea is? We’ve all experienced this. We carefully explain the idea to our parents only to hear “Good idea, son!” Or to our spouses who say “That’s a great idea, but can you take out the garbage and feed the dog first?” Or to our coworkers who use the opportunity to go on and on about their business idea and how much they hate their jobs. What about the opposite side of the coin? Like when you try to find someone to invest and all you hear is “I’m sorry, we’re not listening to unsolicited pitches.”
It can be even more difficult to hire someone to listen to your business idea. How does a conventional consultant charge you for listening to your idea and giving feedback? And if a professional, like a lawyer or an accountant, does it as part of their existing relationship with you, and they don’t charge you anything, how is that worth anything to you? Plus, how do you know that they’re the best experts to give you feedback?
Getting real, valid, feedback on our business ideas can be hard. That’s why I suggest that before you do anything else, you try to get someone to give you actual money for your new product or service. There’s no real way to know whether or not your new idea is viable other than actually selling something to one of your potential clients.
I’ve just learned about a company in Vienna, Austria though that might be able to help out. For $99 they will confidentially review your business idea and provide you with a report detailing their professional opinion of your idea.
Feedbackers.biz is a service for individuals, startups and companies seeking quick and professional feedback for their ideas, websites, business plans marketing campaigns and more. They have been providing micro-consulting to their small business clients in Austria, Germany, Switzerland, Italy, Czech Republic and Slovenia for years and last year they decided to provide the same service to online clients around the world. Their international team can give useful, valid, advice on just about any business idea.
For $99 a client can submit a business idea and have the Feedbackers.biz team review it. Within a day or so, they’ll provide you with a three page report on your idea with a general discussion of what they think is interesting (or not) about your idea. The report will include a number of bullet points to give you faucets of your idea to think about.
For example, if your business idea was to start a website selling toys for pets, their report ask you to consider what permits you’d need, where you’d source your product, shipping costs, accounts payable, competition and most importantly whether or not they think your idea is feasible. The size and content of reports vary a lot, due to the different needs and expectations of clients. After the report is finished, they’ll have a follow-up call to discuss any points from the report and any additional services you might need.
Their core team in Austria consists entirely of locally accredited business consultants (in Austria you need a special business license to provide business consulting services, which you only receive if you can prove certain qualifications). They are also working hard to maintain the same level of qualifications with their international team to ensure the validity of our reports.
40% of their clients come from the US, 30% from Europe (mainly UK and Italy) and 30% from the rest of the world (mainly Australia and the Emirates).
One final note: Most of their potential clients are very concerned about confidentiality and privacy. They take confidentiality very seriously and provide their clients with signed NDA’s.
The table of contents from two real reports follow.
