“Choose your dreams over your fears”. Starting your own business can be a daunting task. Yet, given an opportunity, most people in their 20’s are likely to become entrepreneurs. According to one of the recent studies, 39% of employees working in corporate jobs aspire to build their own venture. Do you want to be your own boss? If yes, you are in the right place. This article is a part of our comprehensive guide – “small business ideas.”
Coming up with new business ideas can be as easy as icing on the cake or almost impossible. Thinking innovative is not an innate ability; it is a skill that one can develop over time with learning experiences and practices. With increasing researches on creative thinking and innovation, people can now learn quickly through applied examples. One of the best ways of finding business ideas is practising and making conscious efforts to recognize peoples’ problems and identifying the means to solve them.
What’s stopping people from starting their own venture? Well, the reason for failing to start is the lack of having a great business idea. Not many people are aware of how or where to start. Knowing where or how to look enables you to spot ideal small business opportunities and ideas. Generating a business idea need not be difficult. This article will help you understand how to develop new business ideas to make money and the science behind it.
Brief Bit of Science Behind Innovative and Creative Thinking
Over 100 billion neurons in a human brain are connected, forming a network called the nervous system. It enables us to make decisions, feel our emotions and environment, and controls our body. The neuron connections largely influence what we think, the way our thoughts process, every feeling, memories, and sensations. It is noteworthy that each human is born to reconnect these connections and build new ones, regardless of age. Neuroscientists have termed this phenomenon as “Plasticity”.
The human brain becomes more flexible at building new connections or reconnecting old ones over time; with new experiences, environment and behavioural changes. As people age, they often work less. Staying less active in our heads leads to forgetting things, giving up on the habit of forming new neuron connections or having firm control over the body. Thus, the simple hack to thinking sharp is to practice consistently. Longer you keep your brain cells active, the easier it is to come up with new ideas.
Creative Thinking is a State of Mind
Several authors have published books on the essence of having an ideal state of mind. It provides us with the wings to think in new dimensions; widening the horizons of our thoughts. When in the right state of mind, we are open to new experiences, experiments and exploration. It enables us to develop new ideas over time. Our mistakes also play a prominent role in helping us think in the right and new direction.
The environment in which you spend most of your time either contributes or destroys your ability to think of new ideas. Spending most of your time in a stimulative environment strives your brain to explore higher limits of your potential. Sometimes we also come up with innovative thoughts motivated by something that already exists. Thus, it is vital to interact with good ideas from multiple people through books, online platforms, and other means of communication. “Interconnectedness is the key”.
How to Generate Small Business Ideas that Can Turn into a Million-Dollar Start-Up?
1. The solution to an Existing Problem Can be Your New Business Idea
Every successful business is a solution to a specific problem. Thus, the best way to develop a new business idea is to find a problem that you would love to solve. It need not be the more prominent solution; you can start with something small. Several everyday products that you have grown used to were invested in solving a problem. You can come up with hundreds of small business ideas if you get good at identifying problems. What’s frustrating you now can be your million-dollar business idea.
2. Solving Problems that May Exist in Future
Solving futuristic problems can be a great start-up idea. Consider Elon Musk, his inventions like Solar City, and Tesla are ideal solutions to what might be a problem tomorrow. For instance, Tesla Motors are designed to fight fossil fuel scarcity which we may face in days to come. Taking the initiative to fix something that is yet to happen provides room to innovate and gives you an outstanding market share. If you feel deprived that your idea doesn’t have an ideal market place, know that you might just end-up creating one.
3. Recognize & Reorganize the Evolving Needs
Thinking ahead of the curve is also a great key to coming up with your small business idea. Physiological needs (food, water, shelter and so on) and emotional needs (pride, greed, envy and so on) stand the same. What keeps changing are the products and services that fulfil these basic needs. These products and services are also the easiest to market. For instance, CDs still exist in today’s market, but it is more convenient to store data online on cloud storage. Selling cloud storage is effortless due to the its demand out there in the market. Small business ideas that can fulfil current needs can go from zero to million dollars in no time.
4. Help People Save Their Money
The best way to succeed as a business in India is to develop ideas that help people save money. Indian customers choose quantity over quality. They are likely to settle for less quality and buy a cheaper product than pay more for quality. Unless people are making hundreds of dollars, buying luxury is not an option for everyone. If you can think of anything that can save people’s money, whether new or not, you have an excellent chance to sustain in the market.
5. Be the Business that Provides a Hassle-Free Lifestyle
Generating new business idea doesn’t necessarily mean inventing a new product or service. You play with ideas that already exist; provide a new feature or introduce a unique benefit that can make daily chores seem much more effortless. There are several small ways through which you can make life easier for yourself and others. Let that means fuel your new small business idea. Start looking for things around you. Question yourself, could that be easier or more convenient? Is there any way you can make it more pleasant to use or less stressful? Even the tiniest change can help create a great product.
6. Turn Your Hobby or Passion into a New Business
Think of ways you can convert your passion or hobby into a business. It can be your life-changing business idea as you are already good at what you have been doing. Starting with something you already know can be intimidating; you will also enjoy running your business. On the other hand, think twice before you start, you might as well lose interest in your hobby as you will have to do what you love to meet customers’ demand. Do not end up wanting to find a new hobby instead.
7. Ideas that Appeal to a Base Emotion
Humans tend to make decisions based on their emotions. It also includes our choices to buy a product or service. Just think of services like pedicure or waxing in saloons. Is having your nails buffed or legs waxed necessary for survival? Several products like hairspray, dry shampoo, salt spray and many others are still able to exploit our base needs successfully. Products these days play with our seven deadly sins (Pride, Envy, Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Sloth, and Anger). If you can pick on that, you will understand how advertisements work.
8. Get Inspired from Others’ Small Business Ideas
There’s nothing wrong in getting inspired by others’ ideas. As long as you can add value to it, you can always provide one of its kind to your customers. Albert Einstein once quoted, “Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources”. If you come across an idea that you think is ideal for you to build on, go ahead and do it. It saves you a lot of time; you can instead focus on planning and executing your final product.
Conclusion
There are several ways to come up with excellent business ideas. Hopefully, the pointers mentioned above were helpful to you. Generate new ideas or improvise what already exists. Once you find a solid business idea, check out our blog post – “Small Business Checklist – Steps to Start a Small Business”. Imprezz is a small business accounting software, helping business owners in India stay GST compliant. Digitalize your small business with Imprezz GST invoicing software.
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