Developing your business idea

How do I find a business idea that’s good?

Ever watched a talented musician play on stage looking like there’s no effort and the music is just magically coming out of their fingers and hands?  Well generating, identifying and recognizing new business ideas is sort of the same. You train yourself to spot them. 

It’s actually really interesting, if you force yourself to generate at least 2 new business ideas daily for a week, by the second or third week you’ll have a firehose of ideas flowing out of your brain. Sometimes you can’t even turn it off!

OK, back to finding a business idea — ultimately, these are the steps you’ll need to go through to find a new business idea for yourself:

1. Research and generate business ideas – put them all in a list
2. Decide which ones are the best possibilities (3 or 4 perhaps out of your list of 20 or 40 or more ideas)
3. Research the 3 or 4 best ones until there’s a front runner
4. Decide if you have the knowledge and resources and you believe the risk is acceptable
5. Begin working on your new business

Here’s how to start:

1. Get a notebook (or start a document)

List everything you are passionate about or good at, no matter how weird. These are your core skills and interests. Optimally, you want to find a business idea that allows you to use these personal strengths.

2. Challenge yourself to jot down ONE new business idea PER DAY.

Don’t worry if they aren’t good – just think of a new business idea every day. After a few days you will start noticing things you need in your own life, or things friends need, or thinking of online apps or businesses that might be good.

3. After 7-10 days, up it to TWO new business ideas PER DAY – jot them down in your notebook. 

It probably won’t be hard – because your brain will have been programmed to seek new business ideas and opportunities. It’s like building up your muscles. It gets easier as you go.

Don’t be surprised if you’re imagining 2 or 3 or 4 ideas a day after a month or two. You’ll see! But you have to keep up and not skip days.

4. After a couple months of working to find a business idea, select the front runners from your notebook, and begin validating them. 

It’s time to decide if any of your new business ideas are worthy of your time. There’s a lot more on how decide if it’s a good idea here.

Program your brain to see ideas: the way to do this is to notice every time you feel frustrated doing something – such as standing in a grocery line, or fixing a flat tire, or trying to cut the skin off a piece of fish, or trying to figure out which avocado is the best one at the market, etc etc.  If you begin to notice things that seem frustrating, chances are that someone will solve those problems one day. Perhaps you should be the one.

If you start programming your brain to become aware of these frustrations or inefficiencies all around you, you will begin generating many possible ideas. It’s like a muscle. You’ll see. After 4 weeks of working on this, you won’t be able to stop seeing problems that need a solution.

Generate a list of business ideas that might fit your passions, interest and skills. 

Does it pass the 10 year test?

Can you see yourself enjoying this business for 10 or maybe even 20 years?

Is this business a trendy thing or is it durable? Will it be around in 10 years?

Solving a problem that you have is a great way to find good ideas normally, because you have deep experience in that area, which is valuable.

Does the business pass validation tests?

Check out our page on How To Test Your Business Idea here >

Also – here’s a great document with links explaining many ways to validate your business:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_jPo1alHmUc43dCC_p56S1uct53pxhNreztbJa-Jkfc/edit

Does the business give you the freedoms you are hoping for and can it generate the money you need to feel that it’s successful enough to continue?

Do you have expertise in this business area? If not, strongly consider going to work for a company that will give you all the experience you need in this area.

Does your idea solve known problems in the marketplace, and more importantly, does it help people to save money or get their work done (think stock photos)? If so, your chances grow considerably.

Does your business solve a good pain point that your customers have?

Do you have the resources and time needed to build the business idea you’re considering? If your idea is to redesign the way supermarket checkout systems work, this is something that would take years and cost millions of dollars to implement probably. However, if your idea is to create a video series that shows people how to solve shoulder or knee pain problems, this is something that could be done without too much $ or time.