The IP Self-Check Every Creator (and Company!) Should Run

How to stress-test your idea before you waste months on it

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Strong intellectual property (IP) is the engine that turns bright ideas into defensible revenue streams. It lets us scale beyond the limits of our calendar, protects us from copy-cats and gives collaborators, sponsors and investors something concrete to stand on.

🪣 In short, good IP is leverage. Weak IP is a leaky bucket.

Before you pour another hour and another ounce of energy into that signature framework, podcast series or micro-course, take a breath and ask yourself a tough question: have I actually built an asset, or am I just shipping more content?

This post is a stress test - for your ideas, and for mine. I wrote it to help myself spend time where it compounds, not just where it’s comfortable. Below, you’ll find a set of 10 questions that I have started to use to separate real assets from well-packaged distractions. They’re grouped into four categories that cover the essentials:

🎯 Market Fit

🤼 Competitive Advantage

🧐 Customer Focus

💰 Monetisation

The self-check below isn’t a legal audit, I’ll let you talk about that with the lawyers! Think of it as an early-warning radar to make sure you don’t waste your time. Let’s dive in.

A Framework to Think About Your Ideas

Run through the questions with brutal honesty. They’ll show you whether your idea is ‘just interesting’ or whether it’s maturing into an asset that can survive, scale and pay its own way.

You might have already seen some of these questions (or versions of them) elsewhere. This is what I personally find to be most helpful as a framework, after days and days of reading up!

How to use the questions:

💡 Do use these questions as a guide. They’re here to help you identify areas of focus, not to create a checklist for success.

🚀 Don’t worry about hitting every criterion. Your unique goals, context and target market will ultimately determine the most important factors for success.

🔄 Do focus on areas for improvement. Use these questions to identify weaknesses and opportunities for refinement.

✅ Don't aim for perfection. Not every product needs to be the fastest, most unique or legally protected to succeed.

Ready? Let’s stress-test that spark. Here are the questions:

🎯 Market Fit

1. How unique is your idea in the market?

Assessing your idea’s uniqueness ensures that it stands out from the competition. If your idea doesn’t offer something new or better than existing solutions, it will struggle to capture attention and create value for your target audience.

2. Is the market ready for your idea?

Timing plays a critical role in the success of an idea. This question helps you evaluate whether the market is prepared to adopt your solution. Even the best ideas can struggle if they are ahead of their time or if the market isn’t ready to embrace them yet.

3. Are you targeting a broad audience, or is there a specific niche that would benefit most from your solution?

Targeting a specific niche can often be more effective than trying to appeal to a broad audience. This question helps you assess whether your product is designed for a wide range of users or if focusing on a particular group would allow you to create deeper connections and more value for that segment.

🤼 Competitive Advantage

4. How difficult or costly would it be for competitors to replicate this idea?

This question highlights the sustainability of your market position. The harder it is for competitors to copy your idea, the more secure your advantage will be in the long run.

5. Is there legal protection (patents, trademarks, etc.) for your idea to prevent competitors from copying it?

Legal protection, such as patents or trademarks, helps safeguard your idea and provides a buffer against competitors who might try to replicate it, ensuring your innovation remains unique. This is not always relevant or possible, but does open up further monetisation opportunities.

🧐 Customer Focus

6. Are you pulling, not pushing?

This question encourages you to focus on customer demand rather than pushing a solution that customers may not be asking for. You really have to ensure that your product is addressing a real need or problem, rather than trying to force a solution into the market without proven demand.

7. Can customers see the advantage right away, without needing a user manual?

People don’t adopt ideas that require them to work harder, read more or wait longer to see value. This question helps you assess whether your solution offers a clear benefit in speed, simplicity or satisfaction, and whether users can feel that quickly.

8. Will your idea still be valuable after the first use?

Some ideas make a great first impression, but fall flat after that. This question asks whether your idea has staying power. Can people return to your tool, framework or product and build on it? Or deepen their engagement over time? If not, you might be creating a moment rather than a long-lasting asset.

💰 Monetisation

9. Could your idea be packaged and monetised as a standalone service or product that clients would pay for directly?

Understanding your idea’s potential for monetisation is key to creating a sustainable product and business. Can you offer it as a standalone product or service that provides clear value to customers?

10. Is your revenue strategy aligned with customer needs?

Understanding your customer’s willingness to pay is a basic ingredient for a successful business model. This question ensures that your revenue strategy (whether it’s subscription-based, one-time sales or otherwise) is in line with how your customers perceive value and how they want to engage with your product.

So, Is It an Asset?

Ideas are easy to fall in love with. They’re exciting, full of potential and deceptively quick to build around. But not every idea is worth scaling, and not every good idea becomes good IP.

The questions in this framework are definitely not meant to box us in. They’re meant to give us grip and to help us see where our ideas hold water, where they leak and where they could become real assets that earn their keep.

Pin this list somewhere visible. Bring it into your next product review. Let it challenge your assumptions before you double down on execution.

Let me know what you spot as you run your own ideas through these questions. I'm doing the same. 🙏🏼

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I'm Andrea, a management consultant with over a decade of experience across industry and academia. I work with commercial, non-profit, academic and government organisations worldwide, helping them capture meaningful insights through mixed methods research.

I write about practical frameworks to help you discover what others miss. My main goal is to translate complex concepts into techniques that readers can use immediately.