How to find a business idea in 6 steps

Semyon Kibalo, the founder of UniFashion, a company producing university sweatshirts without initial investment and author of the book Idea Hunter, is sure: “Ideas are worthless. Exactly 0 rubles 00 kopecks. Evaluation and implementation of an idea is what costs money. "

Innovation

Innovation changes the world, and people who create something new become cult personalities. Mark Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs, Elon Musk - now almost everyone knows their names. Most people should start generating ideas in two other ways. And by the way, Elon Musk also used a refinement option: this is how the Tesla car appeared.

Refinement

This can be adding additional functionality or introducing a product to a new market. An example is men's socks with an ornament. “At UniFashion, I wanted to launch a line of socks in the color of sweatshirts, but put this idea on the back burner. - says Semyon. - It was finalized by another entrepreneur. Who would have known ... In 2021, a new brand blew up the market. In the first months, the company reached a turnover of millions. What did they do? Modified the usual black men's socks. The American “serving” of colored socks gave the goods a special style. Nothing brilliant, simple things, but made with amazing taste. "

Borrowing

Borrowing is, first of all, adaptation. This is how the UniFashion company appeared. Semyon Kibalo could not buy a sweatshirt with the name of the university where he studied, and then the idea dawned on him to make it himself. First for yourself, and then for others.

The idea was borrowed from another country: university jackets gained popularity in the distant 90s in the USA and England, and American cinema introduced the "coolness" of such things into the mass consciousness.

Copy idea

Copying is spying on competitors and a direct route to bankruptcy. For example, the English company Dyson has created an amazing hand dryer: your hands dry in just ten seconds. After a couple of years, copies began to appear - cheaper, but of disgusting quality. Dyson thought through everything to the smallest detail and constantly improved its products, cheap competitors' models always lagged behind them, staying one step behind.

Idea Generation Process

The best ideas are at the intersection of two strangers. In order for you to have a brilliant idea, you need to regularly do the following:

Choose the area you like

Almost any successful business is one that was previously a hobby. It remains so, but it simply scales and makes a profit. You should not go into an area in which you do not understand, as there is a great risk of burnout. Also, you don't need to go to what you don't like. In a month, maybe in a year, you will hate this business, even if it brings good money.

Become a professional in your field

Without deep knowledge of the topic, it is difficult to find a successful idea. In order to become an innovator in your field or to beat the competition in something familiar, carefully study all the subtleties of the profession. If you want to open a service station - study the structure of the car inside and out. If they wake you up in the middle of the night and ask what is the difference between a gasoline engine and a diesel engine, and you answer this as simply as two or two, then you can proceed to the next stage. What will give you high professionalism:

- you will be able to see what competitors do not see. You will notice customer needs that are ignored by other companies; - fast start. You don't have to go the same long way as non-specialists; - vision of the situation. You will be equally good at communicating with suppliers and partners, as well as knowing what to offer customers.

Find a trending topic

You like spinners. Once upon a time, many companies caught a hype on this topic, but now interest in it has completely cooled down. Trends are constantly changing, especially in the digital age, when a smartphone released a couple of years ago is outdated morally and physically by now. Another difficulty with trend ideas is that at the initial stages, they spin along with all the garbage that is of no value.

If you want to quickly and easily isolate a trend topic from the mountains of slag, then use the Signum service. With its help, you can track the emergence of new trends and HYIPs at the earliest stages, that is, before they become public and major players start making money on them. There is no mania in this, the service simply monitors over a hundred thousand sites, forums, blogs, accounts on social networks and so on around the clock. After analyzing resources, Signum provides information about products and services, the demand for which is growing at a fast pace, about expanding markets, promising companies, fashion and style. For 340 rubles a month, you will receive information about five current and five emerging trends for each selected category, the reasons for their appearance and insights, growth forecasts and the consequences of the emergence of trends. That is, you will be several steps ahead of your competitors and even ahead of large companies.

Analyze the problem

Nowadays it is fashionable to call it “pains”, that is, without which it is difficult for a consumer of a product or service. Have you already chosen the area, keep up with the trends, but still don't fully understand what the potential client wants? It is necessary to eliminate this flaw through careful analysis. Look where people in your chosen field are losing resources (time, money, nerves), where work efficiency is lower and what caused this. Act as a doctor giving a patient a magic pill to make their life easier. Here's a rough plan of action:

If you are reading this article, chances are you would like to do business, but cannot find an idea. Now we will share with you proven methods of independent search for business ideas, as well as platforms where you can borrow ready-made ideas.

How to come up with an idea yourself?

To begin with, you probably don't need to come up with anything. Some of the most popular ways to start your own business is to do what you already know how.

Turn work into business

Very often, professionals in their field see that they have reached the salary ceiling in a job and open their own company. Why get some of the money from the client, if you can lure the client to yourself and receive all the client's money. For example, an accountant or lawyer can team up with colleagues and open their own firm in order to lure clients from their old job later. After all, clients will be able to get the same quality of work from the same people, but for less money. Let's leave the moral aspect of such a business start to your conscience, but such stories very often happen in practice. This scheme is also suitable for sales managers, travel agents, customer service managers.

But even if you do not work with people and do not provide services, you may be thinking about how to leave work for business. The seller can memorize the contacts of suppliers, see which products are bought more often, look for places with large flows of people in their city. After that, save money, find premises and buy exactly those goods that will sell well.

A driver can lease a car and search for orders as an individual entrepreneur. Hairdresser open your salon. Think about what is right for you and how to do it.

Turn a hobby into a business

Do you like fishing, or do you perfectly embroider with a cross? A lot of people turned their business into a hobby. Do you know a lot about your hobby? Tell others about it. You can open skill courses, or sell related products. For example, teaching people to embroider and selling sewing kits and thread.

Or open courses for novice fishermen: talk about what to fish for, at what time and in what places. Sell ​​fishing rods and bait. Organize paid trips to “fishing spots”. Sell ​​your catch. Think about how you can monetize your hobby and where to find people who are also interested in it.

Ready Ideas

If there are no ideas at all, then you can spy on others. There are even ready-made courses on the network on how to open a particular business. Below we will tell you where to find ideas for a ready-made business.

Ask friends

The millionaire talked about what to be guided by when choosing a business niche and what nuances to take into account when developing a concept and strategy for his own business on the pages of the book How to Become a Businessman, published by Eksmo Publishing House.

- I think it would be more correct to choose the area in which you understand or work at the moment. On the other hand, I am doing my fifth business - banking, which has nothing to do with the four previous ones. I just always found good niches, although I did not understand anything about them.

. An important component of all five of my businesses is super profitability, they all brought in from 200 to 400 percent of the profit or margin. ... If you see another category, even if unfamiliar to you, but feel that you are an entrepreneur, a visionary and a lucky person, just go there. That's exactly what I did. I didn’t understand anything about the video trade, I didn’t understand a damn thing about dumplings, beer for me is a dark forest, I didn’t even know how it fermented. I believed that beer is made like vodka: they take alcohol and interfere with something. Having invested the first money in a banking project, I did not really know a single term, I did not understand the requirements of the Central Bank. Nothing wrong. If you have the will, desire, imagination - go into a business that seems to you personally profitable and interesting. It is not necessary to know everything thoroughly about him.

Do you need to do market analysis? For my taste, a real entrepreneur should do market analysis on a piece of paper. If your analysis doesn't fit on a restaurant napkin, there is no business there. Of course, it is desirable to attract large consulting and analytical companies. But it all depends on the start-up capital. If you start from scratch, a so-called pure startup, and you are a student, you do not have this opportunity. ...

What to analyze?

A very important factor is the size of the market. Why did I leave dumplings? Having sold the business 10 years ago, I do not regret it at all and I think I did the right thing. Unfortunately, the market is categorically small. At the time of the sale, it was estimated at $ 300 million per year for the entire country. Now, maybe 500 million - that is, it has grown weakly in 10 years. You need to look at the nominal market volume, in general terms: what are the sales volumes of this particular product on the market. In rubles, dollars, euros or shekels - it doesn't matter.

On the other hand, in the case of a startup, when a unique, innovative product is created that has no analogues on the market, this criterion is certainly not important. Who cares about market share if that market is essentially nonexistent?

Where can I get the money?

You are probably reading and thinking: he tells everything well, only he does not say where to get the money. There is always not enough money. It will seem strange to you, but right now, at 43, having bought and sold several businesses for tens of millions of dollars, doing my fifth business, I can responsibly say: I don’t have enough money today, I’m looking for it. In the fall of 2021, I spent 80 percent of the time looking for money. This has borne fruit.

To build a business entirely on borrowed funds - perhaps such miracles happen, but rather it refers to the innovation sphere, to startups. As a rule, you have to invest your, sometimes the last, savings, save. But on the other hand, with your own money you can already attract debt. As a rule, at a startup you can attract 50 kopecks of debt for a ruble of your money - the ratio is 2: 1. Otherwise, you must find a partner and immediately share the property of the company with him at the start. In my opinion, this model is less stable. After all, if the business goes well, it will be a pity to share with a partner, a conflict will arise. And if it goes wrong, your partner will blame you for everything, and it will be even worse. So starting a joint business is perhaps an even more difficult option.

How to create an online business? Entrepreneurs are looking for the answer to this question on our portal more and more often. This article contains the most relevant business ideas in 2021 that are suitable for almost everyone, and some of them can be implemented without investment.

The Internet is firmly entrenched in our lives, online business has taken on various, sometimes intricate forms. Today, thanks to the Internet, you can work remotely without leaving your home and even from anywhere in the world - without an office, paying rent, with a flexible work schedule. Online personal business allows you to earn additional income without interrupting your main job, and sometimes even make serious profits.

There are a huge number of online business options. A person of any profession, with any skills and knowledge, will be able to find a suitable business option for himself on the Internet. First, you need to determine your strengths, interests, skills - and based on this, look for a suitable idea for an online business. Many aspiring entrepreneurs make a serious mistake when choosing an online business based on the level of expected profitability. As practice shows, in the right hands, even the simplest business idea can bring decent profit. But if you do a business on the Internet, in which you do not understand at all, then it is unlikely that you will succeed in this business.

Everything you need to implement an online business: the Internet, a gadget and abilities in a particular area. At the same time, many online business ideas can be implemented without investment.

Online business: Online copy center

The essence of the online business idea is simple but original. Surely you have come across a situation when you need to print any documents, but you do not have a printer at home, and there is no copy center nearby. What to do? The online copy center service will answer this question.

The essence of the idea is as follows: the client sends you an electronic file with the text by e-mail. These can be term papers and theses, e-tickets, photographs, etc. You print them, staple them if necessary, pack them and send them to the customer through a courier. That's the whole scheme. For a fee, you can edit documents. To start an internet business online, you need to purchase an MFP. Its cost will be approximately 15 thousand rubles.

At first glance, the idea seems too naive. And there is some truth in this.

What business is worth starting in a crisis?

Minimum investment. Fast payback. High demand. Does not require premises and staff. 2 days to launch. Choosing an openbusiness portal. u.

• Firstly, such a service will be relevant only for large cities.
• Secondly, the cost of an online business service will be much more expensive than "printing around the corner".
• Third, you will have to carefully plan how the courier delivery will be carried out (by a third-party organization or in-house).
• And fourthly, in order to make good money, you will have to fulfill a large volume of orders.

Business online: SMM Studio