Big idea? Start small.

Photo by xerones

Random reminder of the day: The best ideas grow organically, from small to big.

Think about wildly successful franchises. Out in Los Angeles, Pink Berry started as one small location with horrible parking options in West Hollywood. The “real” frozen yogurt was so desirable, many felt it worthy of the $40 parking tickets and pissed off neighborhood residents awaiting them on the return to their cars. Fast forward 3 years and a $27.5 million investment from (Starbucks founder) Howard Schultz’s people, and the company has nearly 50 Southern California locations.

Same principle applies in other areas of life. Take politics. If you’re thinking about entering politics, regardless of age, running for President is probably not your first stop.  You might run for the Board of Education or mayor of your town.  Perhaps for a state legislature seat.  A few years after that you might take a swing at federal legislature.  But you don’t wake up one morning and run for President.  Even Ross Perot spent a few years on a Texas committee appointed by the Governor before he ran for President.

For those of us with more pedestrian lives, the same rules apply.   A couple of months ago a friend decided she needed to take her  company to the next level.  Having been an independent contractor for several years, she wants to put her name on the map in her profession.  She sees a gap in the professional development programming offered in her field — though it’s dominated by men, there are enough women to warrant a separate conference that blends work-life balance with professional growth.   Over coffee, she  shared her vision of a three day conference with multiple tracks and a gala on the final night.

As I sat listening to her discuss her grand plans, I asked her if she’d ever planned a conference before, let alone one of this magnitude. No. I suggested she might try a one-day, one track event for the first year, which is not only less pressure, but less of a financial risk for her company.  But she insisted bigger is better.

I asked her what she thought would be a fair price to charge for attendance and how she came to that number.  She threw out a low figure that “sounded right.”

After finding out how many people she thought would come, I asked what her event budget was.  Surprise! She hadn’t considered pulling together a business plan breaking down the costs of the various event components.

So she guestimated for the sake of time.  What she thought the event would cost is much much higher than the ticket price she wants to offer for the event.  Even with a higher ticket price, she wasn’t hitting the magic break even number. So I suggested tiered sponsorship packages, providing sponsors with varying degrees of access to attendees, while paying for the expense of coffee breaks and meals.

I recently inquired as to her progress on the event she hoped to have next March.  Turns out after talking with some other business-oriented folks, she was convinced to scale down to a one day event.  After repeatedly hearing the same advice from friends and colleagues, she’s going to start small and add on more programming in 2010 and beyond.  She’s well on the way to developing an annual conference  that could make her firm stand out, because she’s starting with a goal that’s manageable.

We talk about a “germ of an idea” and the “seeds of change” because you need to start small to create something big.