What is the main message of Will It Fly?

Discover if your business idea is viable before launching it.

How long does it take to read Will It Fly?

Reading time varies, but the Blinkist summary can be read in about 15 minutes.

Is Will It Fly? a good book? Is it worth reading?

Yes, Will It Fly? is worth a read. It provides practical guidance for testing and validating business ideas.

Who is the author of Will It Fly?

The author of Will It Fly? is Pat Flynn.

Will It Fly? Summary of Key Ideas and Review

Name: Will It Fly?
Rating: 4.2 (53 reviews)
Author: Pat Flynn

Introduction

What’s in it for me? Get your entrepreneurial idea ready for take-off.

Say you’re thinking about starting your own business. You have an innovative idea and want to build a business around that idea. But, more importantly, you want it to succeed; you want it to defy gravity and soar toward the stars.

But before an idea can pick up speed and really take flight, you first need to get it off the ground – and that’s where these blinks come into the picture.

From aligning your business brainchild with your personal goals to making your plans financially viable, these blinks will make sure that your brilliant idea is ready for take-off.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

how to identify your strengths;
why you probably shouldn’t create a website for food trucks if you don’t own a food truck; and
how to speak the language of your customers.

Key idea 1 of 8

Becoming a successful entrepreneur means creating a business that’s in line with your lifestyle goals.

What’s the first order of business for any young entrepreneur before starting her business? Is it getting funding? Or maybe printing business cards? Actually, the first step involves going much deeper; the entrepreneur needs to investigate how her idea will support her desired lifestyle.

Before turning any idea into a successful business, it’s essential that you make sure it’s aligned with your values and goals. After all, you’re going to put your time, energy and money into this project and the closer it comes to matching your personal goals and values, the more satisfied you’ll be.

So, if you’re a people person, make sure that’s reflected by your business’s social environment, and be sure to create a space that will let you nurture this aspect.

But how can you see to it that you’ll make decisions about your future business that will leave you satisfied? Well, you can simply try interviewing your future self.

Self-examination will help you decide what type of business best suits you – and it’s easy to do:

Grab a piece of paper and divide it into four sections. Then, identify the four most important parts of your life. Your categories might be, for example, Family, Career, Well-being and Money.

Next, assign each of these categories to a different quadrant on the paper. Once you’ve done that, imagine yourself five years down the road and write down all the things that come to mind.

For example, under the Money category, you might write, “in five years my mortgage is paid off, I’ve invested in property, have a steady income from rentals and my kids’ college funds are squared away.” If, during this process, you start to think that your idea won’t generate enough money to make this scenario realistic, set aside time right now to improve it. This way, you’ll avoid making this disappointing discovery in five years.

All this talk of the future might have you itching to get to work on your business. But first, you’ll need to identify a few more personal things to ensure your idea is right for you.

Key idea 2 of 8

Successful entrepreneurs spot their advantages by looking to the past.

Is there one thing that you’re exceptionally good at? If so, you should learn to use it to your advantage! Your unique skills and characteristics give you a competitive edge, a niche from which to operate – in other words, an unfair advantage.

Such an advantage is kind of like your superpower because it makes you stand out from the competition; it should thus be an integral aspect of any new idea. In fact, the mere knowledge that you’re good at something will help motivate you.

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Key idea 3 of 8

Map your idea and distill it to its essence.

So, you’ve traveled into the future and back to the past. You know what you want from life and have some ideas about what you want to do; now it’s time to work on your business idea.

For starters, jot down any thoughts that relate to your idea in a mind map, a useful tool for structuring your thoughts in a visual representation. You can design yours either on paper or electronically.

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Key idea 4 of 8

Share your idea, ask for feedback and research your market.

OK, now your idea is in a shareable format, but before you launch your business, it’s essential to research how the world will respond to it.

Your idea will be improved by sharing it and learning from the feedback. In fact, even casual chats at work or at home can lead to valuable feedback that can help you refine your concept. But you must also be sure to speak with potential clients.

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Key idea 5 of 8

Understand your audience’s issues and how they describe them.

Conducting research can teach you a lot about your potential market, but it’s also crucial to know how to care for your clients. After all, they’re the ones who will be buying your product.

To do so, you should develop an actionable customer profile, also known as a Customer P.L.A.N. This tool will help you identify how your business idea matches up with your audience; in the end, your business will do much better if you understand your customers in all of their complexity.

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Key idea 6 of 8

Strengthen your idea by collecting customer anecdotes and tuning into their needs.

Now that you know how to identify the problems your audience faces and the language they use, it’s time to consider the anecdotes that will help you stay connected to real people. Here’s how:

Anecdotes are stories, usually short, funny or interesting ones, and you should always encourage your customers to share them. These little bits of information will help you tailor your idea to your customers’ experience.

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Key idea 7 of 8

Smart entrepreneurs test the commitment of their potential customers and investors.

You’ve done your market research and created a customer P.L.A.N. You’re almost there! But before moving forward, remember to validate your idea – financially, that is.

You can start by performing initial testing of the commitment your product or service triggers among potential investors and customers. There are a several ways to do this.

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Key idea 8 of 8

Final validation comes through interacting with potential customers and inviting them to invest.

So, measuring the commitment people have to your idea is essential – but people often won’t buy a product even though they showed interest in the idea initially. As a result, it’s necessary to do a final round of validation.

First, interact with your potential customers and share your solution with them to make sure they’ll actually buy your product in the future. Here, it’s best to shoot for one-on-one interactions whether they’re in person, over the phone, through private messages or by e-mail.

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