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Developing business ideas for drone technologies
Developing business ideas for drone technologies

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3 Identifying and developing new business ideas

Now that you have a better understanding of the drone industry, you may be starting to think of opportunities and business ideas of your own. Do you recognise yourself in one or more of the following characters?

  • I am a drone pilot and would love to explore the opportunity of offering my services to farmers.
  • I know nothing about drones, but I work on a farm and would like to experiment their use.
  • I am a student and would like to learn how drones can impact positively on agricultural sustainability.
  • I would like to work on a business idea I have and prepare it to apply for funding.
  • We are already offering some drone-based services, and we would like to expand our offer.

Developing a new business idea is not a straightforward process. There will be several iterations as shown in Figure 11. Week 1 will help you navigate this process as you start considering your own business idea for the use of drones in agriculture.

An infographic showing the uncertainty and risk that occurs between thinking of an idea and the realisation of a business.
Figure 11 The search and testing phases reduces uncertainty and risk

Before becoming an actual business, your idea would need to be distilled in order to reduce its uncertainty and risk (Bland & Osterwalder, 2020). In the Search and Testing phase you will need to engage in the discovery of what direction to take with the design of the business idea, which should also be informed by the feedback of stakeholders. Moreover, the collection of evidence will enable you to engage in the validation of the direction taken. This iterative process is meant to reduce the risk and uncertainty of the initial idea.