Start A Business: How To Generate Business Ideas

Still trying to decide what business to start or validate you’re in the right one already? Great, I’m here to help.

Deciding on a business idea can be frustrating.  Especially if you are blessed with a swarm of ideas. That blessing can also be a curse.

It’s hard to find a good course that helps you get clear about what it is you want to do.  Part of the reason for this is not being honest with yourself.

Personal Inventory

Trust me I get it. In the past, when I worked through business clarity exercises, I would always skew the answers to fit the business I had already started because I didn’t want to accept the fact that I had wasted all this time and money on a business that I may or may not have started.

The common question was figuring out what business you want to create and so they asked for experience and skills and everything else, and I always will partly do the exercise. I never really put much stock into it because I already knew what business I wanted to start (the one that I had already invested in) so I didn’t 150% look within my soul for the answers.

Have you been there?

Common Areas

Education: What education, knowledge, degree, certification, schooling, and learning do you have that you can build a business around? What can you teach to others? Can you build a $97 course around what you know? A $297 course and so on? Are you good at Facebook? Maybe you can build a business teaching Facebook to non-techie people.

Skills: What talents or skills to you possess that you can use to market yourself? Maybe you are really good at Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint, time management, very detail-oriented, techie and organized – can we say VA anybody?

Experiences: What experiences have you gone through, good or bad, that you can be a service for others? Are you a seasoned mother? Maybe you can help first time moms prepare for motherhood.

Achievements: Do you always nail job interviews? I know there are a ton of people who would love to learn from you. Are you good at negotiating salary? Negotiating salary is uncomfortable for many, yet everyone wants more money! Maybe you can create 1:1 mock session where you train your clients on the art of negotiating.

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

Additional Areas

There are additional areas you can review to discover your business idea.

• What do you enjoy doing?
• What are you passionate about?
• What are your strengths?
• What do people say you are really good at?
• What problems in your own life or others have you solved?

In The Zone

My most favorite exercise is discovery the zone. When you are in the zone, time seems to have no relevance. As a matter of fact, several hours can go by without you noticing when you are in the zone.

Many successful entrepreneurs have indeed discovered certain activities when they are at peak performance and then learning how to monetize such gifts.

If you would like to discover the activities that put you in the zone try this simple exercise.  Think of an activity that you enjoy so much that you could literally do it for hours.

An activity so enjoyable that you literally forget to eat. Or when it’s close to your bed time and you are unbearablly tired, you suddenly perk up when you start working in the zone and can stay up for hours.

Care A Little, Care A Lot

Make sure you picked a business idea you don’t mind doing for a while, even years. Picking a business you are great at but don’t necessarily enjoy, may be the fastest way for you to generate cash and leave your 9-5.

So if you’re still not quite sure, like 100% sure, like you are put on this earth to do this XYZ business then I challenge you to go through any course you have purchased in the past that has a business clarity module again. Take couple of hours on a nice weekend and really answer the questions, just start journaling and see what comes up for you. 

What business are you creating?