We’ve written about what questions to ask in order to assess whether your idea is viable, and a fit for you. We’ve also written about the basic steps required to turn an idea into a business. But what happens in between? What’s the right process to follow in order to vet an idea, and determine whether to pursue it? Here are a few steps we often take with clients:

1) Create an idea. That idea usually starts out as a problem (I wish there could be a better way to do X), a solution (I figured out this cool way to do X), or an observation about an existing business (ABC co is doing something really interesting. Maybe that idea would work well if I applied it to X. Or, my employer is missing the boat on X, and maybe I can turn that into a business for myself.).

2) Think through all the angles. Once an idea is in the hopper, pull out a business plan outline. You’re not ready to complete a full plan yet, but it’s helpful to go through each of the 15 topics, and jot down just 2-3 bullet pointed thoughts under each one. That will let you determine what you know already about your business, and what you need to figure out. It will also give you a way to communicate your ideas clearly.

3) Get feedback. Identify people who can give you expert opinions and insights. Be sure to think carefully about which issues you need to resolve, and who is ideally suited to helping you with each one. For example, if you want to build an online marketplace that connects buyers and sellers of used baby toys, you’ll want to understand the secret sauce behind online marketplace models and see if that’s a fit with your target market and products. As a first step, you can read about other marketplaces, like eBay, and do your best to analyze their own baby products sub-business. But you’ll probably want to get out and speak to people who have actually built marketplaces, to learn more about what it takes to build one. And you may want to speak to people who have invested in marketplace businesses, because they see many of them, and have already put a lot of thought into what makes for a good marketplace opportunity. You may also want to interview and survey people in your target market, to understand how they think about the problems and solutions you’ve identified.

4) Tweak your plan. After getting feedback, you can fill in many of the holes in your plan. As part of this step, figure out what the next six months will look like. What are your short term goals? What steps will you have to take to reach those goals, and when? What will you need in terms of people and money?

5) Get a product in front of customers. As quickly as possible, build a minimum viable product, get it in front of a small number of your core target customers, and see how they react – following the lean startup approach.  As you do that, stay in touch with your advisors and even potential investors. Get them to agree on what the right steps are, and what you’ll need to prove. As you do what you told them you were going to do, they’ll help you stay on track, and they’ll see you are a person who follows through on their plans. That will build their confidence in you, and will pay off if you reach out to them down the road for introductions or financing.