Describing your idea

If you have an idea for a business, product or service it's important you're able to describe your idea to:

• customers
• funders
• anyone offering business advice or support

This will also help you when you come to write a business plan or pitch your idea.

You should describe your idea in a clear and concise way and should say:

• what it does
• how it does it
• what it looks like
• what benefits it has

When describing your idea, you should also be clear about whether you're describing a business, product or service.

To help you do this you should think about and list what features, functions and benefits your idea has.

Features

'Features' can be things about your business, product or service that:

• make it different from other similar ideas
• help people identify with it

Functions

'Functions' are the things your business, product or service will do.

Benefits

'Benefits' are the ways your business, product or service will be better than other existing ones.

They are also the ways your idea will improve things for your customers.

Writing about your idea

When you come to write about your idea, try creating 3 versions of your description:

• 10 words in length
• 50 words in length
• 100 words in length

This will help you work out what the key parts of your idea are.

It might help you to describe your idea if you can compare it to something that already exists.

You'll need to think about who your audience are. This includes which features, functions or benefits:

• are most important to them
• they need to know about

You should also avoid using jargon.