Great business ideas are all around you. Just open yourself to
the possibilities, and you're bound to find a winner. To start
your search for that drop-dead idea that's going to set the
world on fire, start with the following sources. Culled from
marketing guru Al Ries, chairman of Roswell, Georgia-based
marketing strategy firm Ries & Ries and co-author with Laura
Ries of 22 Immutable Laws of Branding (HarperCollins), and
business trendwatcher Perry Lowe, professor of marketing at Bentley
College in Waltham, Massachusetts, these can be the first steps in
your search for the business of your dreams.
1. Start with family. Tapping family for
great business ideas may not seem like an obvious first step. Sure,
you'll hit them up for cash once you've developed your
idea, but what can your aging father or cousin Margaret contribute
this early in the process? Plenty. Donald Trump certainly
wasn't bashful about learning the real estate business from his
dad, Fred, who ran a thriving real estate development company, says
Ries. Trump had the good sense to get some priceless training
before going off to become one of the country's foremost
builders and real estate developers. "If his father hadn't
provided the foundation and training [he needed] to create a
profitable business, Trump wouldn't be where he is today,"
Ries explains. "Unfortunately, many people insist on [creating
a business] themselves without any help from their family.
That's foolish."
2. Get a little help from your friends. Ries
says you are severely limiting yourself if you rely solely on your
own ideas --especially when your creative juices run dry.
"This is reason enough to listen to ideas others may
have," he says. "If you have 15 or 20 friends, chances
are a couple of them have some incredible business ideas."
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If it weren't for Steve Jobs' good friend Steve Wozniak,
there would be no Apple Computer today, Ries points out. "Jobs
didn't know anything about computers," he says.
"Wozniak, on the other hand, was the computer genius who
developed the first Apple." Jobs had an eye for great business
ideas and saw the marketing potential for developing a new type of
computer. The important lesson is to keep your antenna up at all
times so you can retrieve good ideas when you stumble across them.
Ries insists you can make more money recognizing someone else's
idea than creating one yourself.
3. Look at all the things that bug you. It
may not sound profound, but Ries says this is fertile ground for
great business ideas. He cites how upset Kemmons Wilson was in the
1950s when a motel owner wanted to charge him an additional price
for each of his five children. He was so ticked off, he launched
Memphis, Tennessee-based Holiday Inn, today one of the world's
largest hotel chains.
If King C. Gillette hadn't been fed up with the tedious
process of sharpening his straight-edge razor, he wouldn't have
founded the massive disposable razor industry. When he took his
idea for a portable razor with a blade that could be used several
times to a research university for assistance, engineers questioned
his sanity. Gillette followed his instincts and the rest is
history.
4. Tap your interests. Thousands of clever
people have taken up hobbies and turned them into a successful
business. Tim and Nina Zagat, who launched the Zagat
Surveys, a publishing empire that sells restaurant guides for
many major U.S. and European cities, are great examples. In the
early 1970s, the Zagats were high-priced corporate attorneys whose
passion was dining out. For fun, they created a newsletter in which
they asked their friends to rank popular restaurants in several
categories. Each year, the newsletter encompassed more restaurants.
Eventually it became such an expensive and time-consuming
undertaking that the couple began charging money for it to allay
their expenses. That was the meager beginning of the famed Zagat
Survey, which is sold in bookstores worldwide. "When
you're doing something you love, it's never considered
work," says Ries.
5. Travel. Traveling opens your eyes to a
plethora of potential business ideas. Ries cites Leopoldo Fernandez
Pujals' discovery of Domino's Pizza on a trip to the United
States from his native Spain. Pujals was so impressed with the
fast-food operation, he went back to Spain and launched his own
version, called TelePizza, in 1986. His company now registers $260
million in sales, and employs 13,000 people in eight countries.
6. Keep your eyes open. "When you see
something that piques your interest, ask yourself, What is it about
this situation that's special?" says Ries. "Then
narrow your focus so you home in on the idea." The process of
zeroing in on the idea often spawns important niche markets.
"Blockbuster Video's niche is renting videos, and Bulbs
Unlimited's niche is selling light bulbs," says Ries. Get
it?
7. Examine old mousetraps--then build a better
one. "If a product doesn't meet your own high
standards, create a better one," advises business trendwatcher
Perry Lowe. "That's what put Ben & Jerry's on the
map." Ice cream fanatics Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield felt
popular ice creams weren't rich and tasty enough for their
cultivated palates, so they created their own super-premium line of
ice cream, which is a bestseller nationwide. Just think: If these
ice cream gurus weren't such picky eaters, there would be no
Cherry Garcia, Chubby Hubby or Phish Food to enjoy.
8. Take it to the streets. There's no
better place to lock into up-and-coming trends than city streets,
Lowe contends. Street culture spawned punk, hip-hop, grunge and a
number of other fads that rapidly evolved into multimillion-dollar
businesses. "Great ideas can often be found by just browsing
happening inner-city neighborhoods in virtually any big city in the
United States," says Lowe.
9. Sleep on it. Many people ignore their
dreams, and some don't remember them at all. But sometimes it
pays to listen to those inner messages, no matter how strange or
unintelligible they are. "You never know, you might just find
the germ of a great idea," says Lowe. The tough part is
crawling out of bed in the dead of night to jot down those great
ideas before they're forgotten.
10. Check out the Net. Finally, Lowe endorses
Web surfing as a fun way to log on to potential business ideas.
"Virtually every search engine has a `What's New' or
`What's Hot' section, where it lists new trends, news
tidbits and hot new Web sites," says Lowe. "Make it a
point to check out various sites daily. It may trigger an idea or
concept you never thought of."
Bob Weinstein is the author of 10 books and is a frequent
contributor to national magazines.
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