Business Ideas 101

**vieome** · 28-Jun-13, 09:54 AM

Problems are good. It is by solving everyday problems that one makes money.

**adrianh** · 28-Jun-13, 10:23 AM

I'll say this much, the most important thing about coming up with business ideas is the ability to think laterally. I fell butt first into the butter recently by being able to apply a common technology to a very lateral market. The market is totally untapped. There are one or two companies doing the same in the US and that is about it. Applying the technology to the market speeds up the creation of the product x1000. The products are simply to make and can be sold into hundreds of shops and of course on the internet.

What is the bottom line: Read and learn as much as you can about as many topics as you can. Look for connections between the topics and if you are really lucky you will find a connection that will turn into a great business. I connected a predominantly male left brain technology with a predominantly female right brain market.

What I have done is nothing spectacular, it should be obvious to anybody who uses the technology. I can only think that the reason nobody else has climbed into it is that they have not been able to make the lateral connection.

We should allow the right brain to play with thoughts, ideas and concepts, to mix and match and dicover connections. I do not think that one would be able to to connect the dots by using the left brain. Linear thinking is simply not suitable to the creative process.

What is very sad is that education spends all its time on the left brain and neglects the right brain. We are taught that we are clever if we can think linearly and we can spit out answers like computers. This might be useful to an accountant but is not useful to a creative person. How can one ever teach entrepenuership to somebody who is unable to think creatively.

People who talk about thinking outside of the box have a very serious problem, they fins themselves trapped in a box of linear thinking coupled with specialization. I have no box, I think far and wide because my knowledge stretches far and wide.

**Dave A** · 28-Jun-13, 10:19 PM

Originally Posted by ians

My next step is to read Dave's posts of how to move from being a one man operation to where is now.

Which reminds me - most of the original series disappeared when I stopped using vBadvanced as the site's CMS. I probably should do something about that.

Originally Posted by adrianh

What I have done is nothing spectacular, it should be obvious to anybody who uses the technology.

I've found the most effective and important ideas are often like that... near blindingly obvious once you've joined the dots and can actually see them properly for the first time. I don't know how many times I've kicked myself and gone "of course, you idiot - how could you not see that before?"

**adrianh** · 28-Jun-13, 10:35 PM

The problem with joining the dots is that most people think linearly and see the dots within seperate thought process streams that are insulated from one another. Right brain all access thinking does not have those linear boundries. Kids do this automatically, education trains it out of them. Our education system forces kids into pure linear thought that disables right brain thinking.

Anyhow, thinking outside of the box is total rubbish unless people have a wide knowledge base which reaches far beyond their formal education.

**vieome** · 04-Jul-13, 04:13 PM

IDEA!

I am not going to think, laterally or linearly on this one. This idea is been floating around in my head for a few seconds and so I will just say it as it comes without really thinking (cause I know sometimes an apple hits you on the head and before you get a chance to think, the word gravity pops in your head).

Start a website called something like the complete internet, or give me your link. Put a simple form on it that people over the world can submit a link to their site on it, and a brief idea of the site, and a catagory. The idea is to create a single site with links to the whole of the internet, I know a huge grand task, but every link that the site collects will add value in that one can have advertising on the site and even perhaps charge a business $1 to add a link. Part of this is to in a sense rid the user of the need for search, can in a sense have their own stumbleapon, where they go a your site with links to many sites. The problem with search is that it is abused by SEO and etc. So that is the basis, this might be a spark for someone in web-design or the other to think on Laterally and linearly in the box that is outside the box.

**Dave A** · 04-Jul-13, 09:50 PM

Originally Posted by vieome

Start a website called something like the complete internet, or give me your link. Put a simple form on it that people over the world can submit a link to their site on it, and a brief idea of the site, and a catagory. The idea is to create a single site with links to the whole of the internet, I know a huge grand task

That's pretty close to the Open Directory Project - which has been pretty dead and broken for years already.

And then there's Open Index - which also seems to have ground to a halt.

**vieome** · 05-Jul-13, 08:17 AM

Originally Posted by Dave A

That's pretty close to the Open Directory Project - which has been pretty dead and broken for years already.

And then there's Open Index - which also seems to have ground to a halt.

Thanks for the Links

**wynn** · 05-Jul-13, 09:47 AM

Sounds like a 'link farm' to me

**Jan2D** · 05-Jul-13, 12:13 PM

I realize the thread started out as a dumping ground for ideas other people could pick up and build on. Unfortunately it's mostly impossible to adequately judge the value of an idea without talking to potential clients.

My advice to someone who wants to start a business would be to forget about thinking of the perfect business idea. I'd suggest: find one person who will pay you real money to solve a problem they have. That means talking to an individual, understanding their problem, solving the problem in a (preferably) cheap way and getting payed.
Then find another person. Solve problem and get payed. Then another person.

If you're lucky one of two things will eventually happen:
1. you will find one client that pays you enough (or often enough): a whale.
2. you will find enough clients with the same common problems that you can solve: a market.

From there on it's the more common business challenges like cash flow, capabilities, capacity, scaling, marketing etc.

The initial stages of starting a business should be looking for people who are willing to pay you ASAP. It's important to be passionate about their problem, but if they don't want to pay you then the problem isn't a big enough pain for them or they don't think you can solve it in a good way.

So forget about business ideas. Get emails, phone numbers and referrals that lead to face to face meetings.