The idea before the business plan

Sit with me for a moment.

Before the trade licence. Before the office. Before you told anyone. There was a moment — quiet, maybe late at night — when something shifted. A problem you kept seeing that nobody was solving. A gap in the market that felt like it had your name on it.

That moment is where every business begins. Not with a plan. With an idea that refuses to be ignored.

I have started businesses across many sectors here in Qatar — trading, technology, engineering, coaching. Every single one began not with a spreadsheet, but with a question: why isn’t someone doing this properly? When you cannot stop asking that question, you are holding the seed of something real.

But here is where most aspiring entrepreneurs go wrong. They either act too fast — launching before testing a single assumption — or they wait too long, polishing a business plan that grows more detailed and less useful with every revision. Both roads lead to the same destination: wasted time and wasted money.

The answer is simpler than any business school curriculum suggests. You talk to people. Not your family, who will encourage you because they love you. Not your friends, who will agree because they want to be supportive. You talk to the people who would actually pay for what you are proposing to build.

Describe the problem — not your solution — and watch their face. If their eyes light up and they say “yes, that drives me crazy too,” you are onto something. If they look politely confused, keep working.

Here in Qatar, we are fortunate. A phone call can get you a meeting with almost anyone. The culture of hospitality means people will sit with you, share coffee, and tell you honestly what they think. That access is one of the Gulf’s most undervalued competitive advantages. Use it.

What you are looking for is not just a problem. It is an urgent problem. One that people are already spending money to solve imperfectly, or losing money because it remains unsolved. That urgency is what separates a business idea from a hobby.

One test I give every entrepreneur I work with: Go out this week and try to pre-sell your idea. Not launch it. Just find three people willing to pay for it — ideally, who actually hand over a deposit. You will learn more in that single exercise than in six months of planning.

If you cannot find three people willing to pay, the idea needs more work. If you can, you have something worth building.

The business plan comes later. The customer comes first: Always.

What problem do you keep seeing that nobody around you is solving well? That question is worth sitting with this week.

Mohammed Shabeeb is the National Director of BNI Qatar and Director–GCC for ActionCOACH Business Coaching. He can be reached on shabeeb@bni.qa

Originally published on Gulf Times

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