“I Wanna Build A Business But Can’t Think of Ideas” — Here’s What To Do

The moment I hung up my football boots, I knew I was going to be a business owner.

I just didn’t know how.

I taught myself to program, relearned Maths, got into the AI space, started freelancing, and now I’m a solopreneur.

Before the final transition to solopreneur, I was in limbo for months…

I knew I was sick and tired of freelancing, but couldn’t come up with any business ideas.

Now, I’m over that hurdle.

There’s a few things I did to get my creative juices flowing — funnily enough, I still do all of em today.

I thought it would be selfish of me to not share them with you, so without further ado…

Travel more

The idea for Virgin Airlines was famously birthed after a canceled flight to the British Virgin Islands.

A certain Richard Branson was supposed to be aboard that flight.

As he joke, he borrowed a blackboard from the airport and wrote“Virgin Airways” on it.

He then advertised one-way tickets to the British Virgin Islands for $39 to his fellow stranded passengers…

TLDR: People paid.

But Kp, he was already rich.

Fair play.

What about Howard Schultz?

Yes, he was rich at the time he bought Starbucks, but think about what happened before…

It’s the early 1980s. He’s just been hired to work for a whole-bean coffee, tea, and spices retailer.

He visits Italy for the first time for a trade show then gets sucked in by Milan’s espresso bars.

In each shop I visited I began to see the same people and interactions, and it dawned on me that what these coffee bars had created, aside from the romance and theater of coffee, was a morning ritual and a sense of community,”

— Howard Schultz.

This experience triggered in him a purpose. He wanted to recreate the same experience at Starbucks.

He convinced the founders of Starbucks to test the coffee house concept he saw in Italy and it was a hit.

The seedlings from this experiment served as the foundations for his new business “II Giornale” where he offered brewed coffee and espresso beverages made from Starbucks beans.

Then the Starbucks owners put the company up for sale. Schultz buys. The rest is history.

Moral of the story —

Travel. Experience different cultures. Get inspired. Bring back your learnings.

Help who’s there now

My mentor once told me, “Don't try to push. Allow the business to be pulled from within you.”

It was in response to my constant nagging about a lack of ideas.

Here’s how I understood what he said —

There’s several problems around you right now.

If you can start by solving just one of them, you’ll be in greater demand than if you solved none.

Do this a few more times and it will naturally manifest itself into a business.

Simple, yet elegant — and it makes sense.

Why?

Cos we all belong to several communities.

For example, you may be a white 26-year-old male from New York.

Each one of those features about you is a community you belong to. Look around each one for problems.

Just write em down.

What can I make cheaper, faster, or better?

Find one person to help.

Let greatness be pulled from within you.

Solve your existing problems

Sara Blakey is an American businesswoman.

She invented Spanx in 2000 out of her frustration with pantyhose.

Now she’s worth 1.1 billion dollars.

This isn’t about the money though…

It’s about the thoughts that go on in your head when you start thinking about business ideas.

Don’t get blind-sighted by money — “Will this idea make me rich?” (that’s a dumb question to ask).

I’ve studied over 100 business founding stories in the past two months and each time I’m reassured that at the foundation of a business is a problem people want solved desperately.

Well, guess what?

We all got problems.

That means in you, there’s tons of business ideas.

Start by solving some of your own problems.

You never know…

You might just one day end up with 1.1 billion dollars one day.

Become a scientist

Scientists don’t look for perfect…

They settle with “good enough.”

But to get to good enough, they conduct several experiments to accept or reject their assumptions.

Basically what I’m saying is —

You don’t have to wait to have a fully formed perfect idea to get started.

Test out the maybe’s.

I had a maybe idea last month.

I tested it out. It got rejected. I moved on.

Don’t waste time trying to come up with something perfect.

Maybe you assume ordinary people don’t follow nutrition plans. Great.

Go to your local gym during peak hours and do a survey.

If your assumption is accepted (as in they don’t follow them), figure out why.

When you know why, start thinking of ways around it.

Ask yourself “How can I make this better?”

What stomps people who wanna start a business the most is the idea of originality.

I wanna solve a problem no one else has solved.

Yeah, get off your high horse fella.

Henry Ford didn’t invent the first-ever car.

Mark Zuckerberg didn’t create the first social network.

Jeff Bezos didn’t start the first online bookstore.

What all of these people did well is spot something working and figured out a way to make it better.

Here’s an actionable tip —

Make a list of businesses you admire and write down one to three ways you could improve them.

Don’t worry about how realistic they are in the beginning.

Just get the juices flowing.

Final thoughts

Finding business ideas is more about being vigilant about what’s going on around you.

There’s problems everywhere. Train your eyes to see them.

I gave you the five techniques I use:

→ Travel more
→ Help who’s there now
→ Solve your existing problems
→ Become a scientist
→ Ask yourself “How can I make this better?”

Hopefully they can help you too.

Thanks for reading!

Kurtis PykesThe Startup

Written by Kurtis Pykes

 


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