Since the summer, I have met with several entrepreneurs and would-be entrepreneurs. When discussing their business ideas, the concern that I saw is that each expressed a very broad and wide idea which more described the overall scope rather than a specific business idea that is testable and can be explored with potential customers. When meeting with researchers, I often run into the same situation where there is an overall area but not a specific research idea to write a paper around. I think that although it is important to have a broad area of interest, until you make it specific and concrete, you have not done your job. Rather than going in with a broad idea, make sure that you enter a meeting with something as concrete and tangible as feasible. It’s much easier for the audience to generalize from a specific idea or concept than the other way around. Also, it helps you move on from an idea that you might believe in but don’t know how to take forward to other ideas as you realize that the idea wasn’t such a good one to begin with. So, as my reflection for today: where are you keeping things too high level and non-actionable? What can you do to move forward?