A London company called XPloreAir has launched a Kickstarter project to bring its flying bicycle, which they call “Paravelo,” to production.

Even though it flies up to an altitude of 4,000 feet by way of fan and parasail, you don’t need any special sort of license to operate it.

It can hit 25 miles per hour while airborne and it even has an integrated tent for fly-camping (which the company calls “flamping,” of course). 

We could keep going on, but why don’t you just watch a video of the flying bicycle in action instead?

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Every entrepreneur wishes that he could predict whether his idea could be the “next big thing,” before he spent his life savings and years of energy on it. Investors, on the other hand, typically don’t even look very hard at the product or service, but prefer to evaluate first the entrepreneur, and secondly the business plan.

I define these products and services as “solutions” (customers buy solutions to a problem), but Guy Kawasaki more generically calls them causes, meaning any new idea, company, or service. Yet we can all agree that the quality of the solution or cause is very important, and there are attributes that reduce the business risk and make it more likely a success in the marketplace.

Many people have tried to outline and refine these important attributes, including Kawasaki again in “” He and I recommend that product ideas be assessed against the following five key qualities:

1. Depth. A deep product or service has a robust set of features. It means you’ve anticipated what your customers will need as they move up the power curve, For example, Google is a one-stop source for your online needs, ranging from simple search to managing your e-mail, to analyzing your Web site. The selection is incredibly deep.

2. Intelligence. An intelligent solution solves people’s problems in smart ways. Smart solutions are the ones that look simple in retrospect, don’t require a genius with an instruction manual to use them, and the benefits are easily quantified. In the computer world, the advent of the mouse for interface control and selection was such a product.

3. Completeness. A complete solution provides a great experience that includes service, support, and a string of enhancements. For example, the Lexus experience is more than the steel, leather, glass, and rubber. After-sales support, comfort, accessories, and brand image are as much a part of owning a Lexus as the car itself.

4. Empowering ability. An empowering solution enables you to do old things better and to do new things you couldn’t do at all. It increases your confidence and your ability to control your life. This feeling of empowerment is the essence of why young people love their smart phones and often consider their phone an extension of themselves.

5. Elegance. An elegant solution is not opulent, but embodies creativity and polish, and enhances the user experience. An elegant solution works with people. An inelegant solution fights people. It looks right. It feels right. It works right. And it doesn’t make more work for you. This may be hard to define, but you know it when you see it.

In summary, the best product or service is a full-featured one (deep) that shows you understand customer needs (intelligent), comes with support (complete), makes customers better (empowering), and is easy to use (elegant). As you create your solutions, ask yourself if they are deep, intelligent, complete, empowering and elegant.

Of course, great startup solutions need great teams to implement them. Back to my comment at the beginning that investors evaluate the people before the idea, see my article a while back for details on “Investor Rules of Thumb For Investable Entrepreneurs.” The combination of these factors is why a new entrepreneur with his first idea usually has a tough road ahead.

As Guy says, “in a perfect world, you are so enchanting that your cause doesn’t matter, and your cause is so enchanting that you don’t matter.” In the real world, don’t count on either of these cases. You can best help yourself by doing the homework listening to customers and quantifying the pain points before you define a great solution. Then build a team, build a plan, build a great company, and have fun.

Marty Zwilling

Startup Professionals Musings

Just like in poker, entrepreneurship isn’t about winning a single victory. It’s about coming out on top in the end. I should know, as I’m just back from Las Vegas where I participated in the World Series of Poker.

After more than 24 hours of Texas Holdem, I raked in the chips and watched them float away. But I didn’t walk away empty-handed. Here are the top five lessons I learned from my experience as a poker fan and how it meshes with my life as an entrepreneur:

1. You’re always playing the long game.
While James Bond movies have you believe every hand in poker is full of tense betting and spirited bluffs, you’ll find professional-level poker is really a game of attrition. I spent most of my time folded and watching how other players dealt with James Bond-esque situations rather than participating in them myself.

Bottom line: Like poker, business isn’t about the short term. Getting lucky on one hand isn’t a strategy for longevity. Taking a risk may offer an immediate payoff, but the odds are against you when trying the same tactics next time around.

2. Execute decisions under pressure.
Poker is a decisions game. You need to know when to bluff, when your opponent is bluffing and when your opponent thinks you’re bluffing. And you have to figure this out in a very tense environment. To do this, you’ll need to familiarize yourself with the game — practice, study and failure are the only ways to get better.

Bottom line: School can only take you so far but once you graduate, you will need to figure out things on your own. As a young entrepreneur, you will be the one making decisions and often times you will feel like you are in a pressure cooker. Before you jump the gun, make sure you have all knowledge about the various choices and reach out to others that have been in similar situations.

Related: 7 Ways to Weigh Your Start-Up Risks – and Reduce Them

3. The talkers get knocked out quick.
I’ve always suspected that the talkers in poker are overcompensating for something and after my experience I know for sure. Every time the 10-gallon-hatted peacock would give me a snide jab, I’d throw him back a pleasant smile and keep my mouth shut. He ended up losing.    

Bottom line: Talk is about as cheap as old clichés are about talk being cheap. I’m not a talker, and my brother and I pride ourselves on skipping the lip-flapping for getting stuff done. Instead of talking a big game, show it. You will build a reputation for being honest and dependable.

4. Sometimes the odds beat you.
In the end, I went bust. I lost fair and square, but I know I exhibited perfect play throughout the tournament, as I’ve spent years learning poker the same way I learned how to build new businesses.

Bottom line: Even the best ideas go sour. Sometimes you know in your heart that you’ve done everything right and things still go belly up. This just means that you’re going to take what you learned and jump into your next venture that much better equipped.

Related: Divide and Conquer: What War Can Teach You About Business

5. Have a support system.
My brother Adam is my partner in everything and during my first shot at the World Series of Poker, it was no different. He made sure that I was fed, hydrated and in peak form through every step of the tournament. When I had a bad beat, Adam had my back.

Bottom line: When you’re an entrepreneur, having someone with you through thick and thin can improve your game on every level. A strong support system through friends, mentors and family will help you learn from your failures and be there to relish in your successes.

Learned any business tips from poker or other games? We would love to hear about them in the comments below.

 

“He sounded so capable in the interview!”   “I just don’t know what happened. It seemed like she had exactly the right experience we were looking for!”   “The whole team loved him, so we…

Is there anyone, at this point, who doesn’t have a 3D printer lying somewhere around their office? GigaOm reports that cops in Germany are purchasing one, so they can explore for themselves how the technology could be used to create handguns, though if 3D-printed tchotchkes also start showing up on the , well, who can blame them?

GigaOm says: Read more