In business, it’s important to know the sources of business ideas. These online resources for generating business ideas can help you come up with a startup concept, a niche market, a niche product, a new service idea, a new product idea, a differentiation strategy. They can also help you pursue a better way to generate business ideas in entrepreneurship.
Here you will learn about sources of business ideas to help create or build your own business. There are many different types of businesses to start and ideas range from home based businesses to franchises and even starting a new product. No matter what type of business you want to start, I will help you find them.
How to come up with a great business idea
Start by analyzing yourself and your strengths. What interests you? What are you naturally good at?
- What are you good at? If you’re the go-to person for certain chores or tasks, this might be a golden opportunity to turn that skill or talent into a business. However, it’s important to choose something you are passionate about and can see yourself doing day in, day out.
- What do others tell you that you’re good at? Maybe you have a hidden talent that others see in you that you never thought of as a big deal. If this is the case and that skill is something you could see yourself doing more of, it could be a great business idea. Talk with your family and friends, and see what they think.
- What service do you wish existed that currently doesn’t? This happens all the time. You search the app store looking for something specific, thinking that it certainly exists, only to find it doesn’t. This is your chance. You could pair up with an app designer or create an app yourself that could benefit people like you all over the world. Another way to think about it is what problem exists that needs a solution? Some of the most successful businesses are ones with products or services that solve problems for others.
Start with family
Tapping family for great business ideas may not seem like an obvious first step. Sure, you’ll hit them up for cash once you’ve developed your idea, but what can your aging father or cousin Margaret contribute this early in the process? Plenty. Donald Trump certainly wasn’t bashful about learning the real estate business from his dad, Fred, who ran a thriving real estate development company, says Ries. Trump had the good sense to get some priceless training before going off to become one of the country’s foremost builders and real estate developers. “If his father hadn’t provided the foundation and training [he needed] to create a profitable business, Trump wouldn’t be where he is today,” Ries explains. “Unfortunately, many people insist on [creating a business] themselves without any help from their family. That’s foolish.”
Get a little help from your friends.
Ries says you are severely limiting yourself if you rely solely on your own ideas — especially when your creative juices run dry. “This is reason enough to listen to ideas others may have,” he says. “If you have 15 or 20 friends, chances are a couple of them have some incredible business ideas.”
If it weren’t for Steve Jobs’ good friend Steve Wozniak, there would be no Apple Computer today, Ries points out. “Jobs didn’t know anything about computers,” he says. “Wozniak, on the other hand, was the computer genius who developed the first Apple.” Jobs had an eye for great business ideas and saw the marketing potential for developing a new type of computer. The important lesson is to keep your antenna up at all times so you can retrieve good ideas when you stumble across them. Ries insists you can make more money recognizing someone else’s idea than creating one yourself.
Study successful entrepreneurs
It’s hard to know where you’re going if you don’t know where the great entrepreneurs before you have been. Read origin stories and study successful business titans. How did they come up with their business idea? What advice do they have to up-and-coming entrepreneurs? Learn all you can before you embark on your own journey.
Tap your interests.
Thousands of clever people have taken up hobbies and turned them into a successful business. Tim and Nina Zagat, who launched the Zagat Surveys, a publishing empire that sells restaurant guides for many major U.S. and European cities, are great examples. In the early 1970s, the Zagats were high-priced corporate attorneys whose passion was dining out. For fun, they created a newsletter in which they asked their friends to rank popular restaurants in several categories. Each year, the newsletter encompassed more restaurants. Eventually it became such an expensive and time-consuming undertaking that the couple began charging money for it to allay their expenses. That was the meager beginning of the famed Zagat Survey, which is sold in bookstores worldwide. “When you’re doing something you love, it’s never considered work,” says Ries.
Turn to social media
People on social media are often quick to identify issues and problems they have with current products, places, processes, etc., but few take the time to come up with a solution. Reading through people’s grievances can give you great insight into problems other people have that you can solve. Online review sites can offer the same.
Business Ideas
Personal Trainer
Offer in-home consultations, personalized nutrition and exercise regimens, and community boot camps to get the word out. Don’t forget to populate an Instagram feed with inspirational quotes, free exercise videos, and yummy snack ideas as well — it’s a common way for fitness gurus to build their brands in our digital world.
If you choose to go this route, it’s OK to start small at first, then scale up. For instance, MOURfit is a personal training business in Indianapolis that started in a shared gym, then grew to a private gym that offers group fitness, personal training, and nutrition services.
Woodworker
Similarly, if you have a passion for crafting beautiful furniture or other home goods out of wood, that could be a small business niche for you. Get started by listing a few of your pieces on sites like Etsy. Once you build a following, consider starting a website, accepting custom orders, or expanding to refinishing work and upholstery.
Handyman
Are you always fixing things around the house? Often on-call when friends need small projects completed? Create a website, conduct a competitive analysis to determine what your time and expertise are worth, and turn to the friends you’ve helped before for referrals.
Sewing and Alteration Specialist
People will always need clothing hemmed and buttons mended — and you could be the person to do it. If you love sewing, start by offering simple services like those mentioned above and expand your repertoire to dressmaking and design as you build a customer base and demand.
Online Dating Consultant
Dating consultants usually charge for their time. They help people create successful online dating profiles, source possible matches from outside the typical online channels, and offer a level of personalization that a site like Tinder can’t. Think you’ve got a knack for the match? This might be the business for you.
Freelance Developer
From building websites for other small businesses to providing technical support for certain projects, quality web development is in high demand right now. As a web developer, you’ll naturally have a technical skill set. Distill your knowledge and expertise so customers who don’t have your experience are able to understand what it is you’ll be helping them achieve.
To help with this, test your messaging on friends and family who don’t have a firm understanding of the work you do. If they’re able to summarize what you do, your messaging is likely effective among people outside of your industry.
Conclusion:
A business idea is a concept that a person uses for a particular business, which he can modify and decide to derive income from. Ideas are not owned by anyone. If the idea is novel, then the owner of that idea can put it into use by registering a patent for that invention or writing a book detailing the system as explained in the patent.
One of the most difficult tasks in entrepreneurship is where to get business ideas. The internet is filled with resources that make it easy to find business ideas to start your own company or grow an existing one. Amazon, ecommerce sites like Alibaba , business idea sites like BizBash , and social media are all sources for business ideas