How To Find Your Best Business Idea: Brainstorming & Prompts For Your Perfect Lifestyle Business

1. Introduction: Coming up with ideas as step one in creating a new business, and finding your best business idea starts with you, who you are, what you need, your preferred life ingredients, and how you can match your external environment with your innermost desires. If you conduct a Google search for how to find business ideas though, you'll get thousands of results from different websites, books, and blugs, but few of those places focus on building a business that you actually like that can help you build a life that you love. This class will help you do that. My name is Rosie Bell, and I'm a location independent writer, author, and lifestyle entrepreneur. Over the past decade, I've dipped my feet into various industries and created several businesses, including a fashion brand loved by celebrities like Miana. Today, I run a writing and editing business and work with high profile media brands like National Geographic, Fb Travel Guide, Lonely Planet, Shondelnd, Travel and Leisure, oneness traveler and BBC work life. I also help freedom lovers travel and work online with discovery sessions, the location independence education platform that I created. My travel and business endeavors have also been featured on Business Insider, ABC News, NBC News, and South China Morning Post. I've created a business that generally complements my desired lifestyle and brought me professional, as well as personal fulfillment. My mission and greatest pleasure is to help people find professional success and life satisfaction on their own terms. Today, I will be your business brainstorming coach and help you get unstuck. In this class, I'm going to provide a series of prompts and questions that will help get your creative juices flowing, using a simple technique that I invented to never run out of story ideas, which is extremely important as a writer. Writers know a thing or two about coming up with ideas as it's essentially our currency. This is a mind opening online course for aspiring entrepreneurs and anyone who wants to create a business that aligns with your lifestyle goals. My guess is that's a lot of people. This class is for you, if you've decided that having a nine to five job isn't the only way to make a living. Join me as we solve two common problems. The inability to generate business ideas and coming up with generic ideas that don't suit your specific vision for your life. When you don't know where you're going, it takes forever to get there. So you'll outline your goals and desired life ingredients before we go through the extensive list of brainstorming prompts, which are accompanied by bright inspirational visuals. You'll be provided with an evaluation sheet to analyze the exciting ideas that you come up with based on your criteria. So if you'd love to create your ideal lifestyle business, but don't know where to start, start here. Welcome to your discovery session. 2. Defining Life Design and Lifestyle Entrepreneurship : In a nutshell, Life design is about being in the driver's seat, steering your life in the direction that you choose for it to go with your desired life ingredients. It's about matching your external environment and life experiences with your internal desires, values, and needs. It's about feeling vitalized and liking your life, being alive and not simply existing. It goes without saying that this is highly personal, and it is not based on anything that you should be doing. It's my personal belief that we'd all be better off if we did away with the word should altogether. This one word is extremely confining and helps to program us towards certain behaviors and ideologies that we might not even personally subscribe to. So many people are educated, healthy, and economically comfortable. Yet, living lives of quiet anguish because those lives aren't fears, and they're simply doing what they feel they should. Life design is about creating your own definition of success and being open to possibilities. To an extent, the society that we live in does offer stipulations that we are encouraged to meet. At different stages of our lives, you might not even be aware of them. The inferences are often very subtle and tend to pop up around certain age milestones, 20, 30, and 40, for instance. There are so many ways that we can live our lives beyond what society traditionally prescribes for us. For instance, you can spend six months of the year working and travel for the rest of the time. You can choose to never work in an office again if that's not where you're happiest. You can have two part time jobs instead of one full time job. You can run your own business and never have an employer ever again. You can avoid winter forever and only spend time in hot places. You can have as many side hustles as you want. Buy, build and flip companies. You can work fewer hours and spend more time with your loved ones, or you cannot work at all and make the most of your money from passive income sources. Life design is about setting goals and taking action. The most crucial step to getting what you want in life is deciding what you want in life and then taking action. Life design is working towards goals that are based on your values and deep desires and goals that are consistent with your identity. So let's talk about your values. Your values are essentially your why and your how. Your personal rules that you choose to live life according to. They affect your behavior and help inform your choices. Defining your value simply means outlining what's generally important for you. What is your personal code of conduct? What do you stand for? What's important to you? What motivates you? What core beliefs represent your individual essens? What is your life about? What brings you fulfillment? Is a community, adventure, perseverance, personal growth, or positivity? Values are stable but not static. Whereas you might start off your career being motivated by making money, along the way your focus might switch to something else like giving back or work life balance. Our satisfaction levels are significantly impacted by the absence and presence of aspects that are in line with our values and beliefs. For instance, if you value family time, but your job makes you work long hours that keep you away from your family, you're likely to feel conflicted. If you don't value competition, but your job is very cut throat and competitive, you're also likely to feel internal conflict. When you take note of your values and make plans that honor them, life simply feels easier. Now, let's define lifestyle entrepreneurship. Life design is also about being intentional about your lifestyle. Your lifestyle is how you experience the world, the habitual patterns that you have regarding time, leisure, money, and energy. In many cases, the work that you do will influence all of these things positively or negatively. Many full time jobs will cap your earnings and dictate how much free time you have to spend with people that you care about or when you can take vacations. What you do professionally has a major impact on your life satisfaction because the average person will spend 80,000 hours at work over a lifetime. Your work life affects every other aspect of your life from the free time you have for relationships and your ability to partake in your community to the things that you can afford and how generous you can be with others and yourself. Being a lifestyle entrepreneur means having total control of all the decisions that impact how you engage with the world. It's about injecting more pleasure into your life so that you can enjoy it more. Lifestyle entrepreneurship is creating a business in order to design your ideal lifestyle. It's living and working on your terms, not someone else's. Being a lifestyle entrepreneur is not only about restoring the balance between leisure time and work time, but it is based on the premise that work does not have to be your whole life. Some of the benefits that lifestyle entrepreneurs reap include flexibility, freedom, fun, excitement, autonomy, time, and increased contentment. Running a business based on your individual preferences, strengths, and passions leads to greater job and life satisfaction. The challenges you face are the ones that you choose, and your success depends on you, which can lead to a deeper sense of accomplishment. This class is essentially here to help you become a lifestyle entrepreneur and create a business that lets you tailor your own schedule and be free to work where, when and how you'd like to. 3. All About You (Creating Your Roadmap) : To create a business that touches on your own definition of successful life, you first need to know what a successful life is for you. In my case, I've chosen my career not just based on what I would like to do on a daily basis or how much I want to earn, but according to the kind of lifestyle I would love and the freedom I want to have. I am not much of a morning person. So being a writer fits into how I prefer my days to look. I enjoy the freedom to make my own decisions and work where and when I wish. So I appreciate the mobility that writing gives me. I am a seeker of jobs to keep my purse and my heart full. To create your roadmap or blueprint for your perfect lifestyle business, we're going to start by thinking about you and your goals because you are the y for this company, because it's your lifestyle business. Your roadmap is essentially your set of personal goals. The more aligned you are with the business, the easier it will be to make the identity shift that's needed to believe that you are that thing, the wonder of that enterprise. When you're a lifetyle entrepreneur, your business exists to help you reach your happy place because it's our job to make ourselves happy and enjoy getting out of bed every day. By creating your goals roadmap first, you can immediately evaluate any new business ideas that you come up with, and therefore, describe the ones that don't match what you're looking for straight away. So to create your roadmap, we're going to first nail down two things. You one sentence life goal, and your five work goals and five lifestyle goals. Your one sentence goal basically answers the question. What do you desire more than anything? This one sentence goal is a statement that will guide you in the right direction. It's your GPS. This one word encapsulates what you want from your life, and it will be your main focus as you evaluate any of the business ideas that you come up with. You can call it a one word mission statement if you like. All of the business ideas that you eventually come up with will be evaluated against each of your goals? To be able to choose your one word and the subsequent ten work and lifestyle goals, you'll first need to reflect? Scroll through your memory back. Take the temperature of your life so far and think about your dreams. Are you living the life you want to be living? And if not, what's missing from it? When have you felt your best at work? When were you the most relaxed or when did you feel most accomplished and fulfilled? What makes you feel truly alive? In your ideal scenario, who's around you when you're working? Are you surrounded by people, or are you on your own? What would you like your mornings to look like? Are you going for a morning workout? Do you have time to meditate, or do you do yoga before you start the day? What is the standard of living that you're looking for? What would you like your day to day to look like? What's the weather like? How much financial freedom would you like to have? How much free time do you have? To help you come up with yours, here are some one sentence goal examples, Amusement, autonomy, compassion, contentment, excitement, freedom, happiness, fun, hope, imagination, making a difference, originality, playfulness, stability, uniqueness, or usefulness. Now, let's look at some examples of work goals and lifestyle goals. Some work goal examples are a cheerful work environment, breaking free from the nine to five for good, connection, continuous lifelong learning, hanging out with fun people, intellectual stimulation, part time work, sharing knowledge and skills with others, wearing what you want to work, working in a team or with people, or working fewer hours. Here are some lifestyle goal examples now. Being debt free, family time, location independence, only living in warm places, waking up without an alarm and work life balance. Bear in mind that these ten things are your non negotiables. This is your roadmap to get to where you want to go. They're the things that you want more of in your life to live at the happiest way for you. They're your key ingredients of the most delicious iteration of your life. Your one sentence goal is essentially your top priority, and the ten work in lifestyle goals sit under that, giving you foundational support as you brainstorm. You will refer back to all of them each time you think about your new business. Let's take a fictional individual called Alex as an example. Alex's defining one word is flexibility. Alex's five work goals are being creative, having mornings off, having flexible hours, total autonomy, and wearing what he wants to work. Alex's five lifestyle goals are location independence, making money while he sleeps or making passive income, only living in warm places, having a regular sleep pattern and waking up without an alarm. The business option with the best personal fit for Alex is one that meets all of these goals. Let's say Alex has offered a business opportunity to partner in opening up and running a nightclub. No matter how glittering or fun filled the position might be, it wouldn't be the personal best fit for him because it would only truly meet a few of his work and lifestyle goals. He could be creative with the design and branding of the club, and he might have mornings off, and therefore not need to wake up with an alarm. Depending on the opening times and the division of labor with his business partners, he could have set hours, so a regular sleep schedule would be possible. He could also start the club in a place with warm weather. There are several ways the club doesn't fit his goals though. Many light clubs do have a dress code, so he wouldn't necessarily be able to wear whatever he wanted to work. The club would probably have the same opening times every week, so he couldn't really be too flexible with his hours. Also, he wouldn't be location independent as a club as a physical space where he might need to be present. His income from the club would not be earned passively either. Overall, owning and running a nightclub does not meet his one sentence goal, which is flexibility, and it only meets five out of his ten work and lifestyle goals. Personal fit means you'll ultimately be happier in a role and more productive than the typical person that would do that job. It's important that your business idea is aligned with you because if you don't truly care about it, it's very likely that you won't see it through all the ups and downs that come with running a business. Having set goals means you're headed in the right direction. Once you have your roadmap, you'll be better equipped to discover exciting new business possibilities for you. Time to start brainstorming next. From 4. Brainstorming With the SWORD Method: To help your business idea of brainstorming, we're going to use sword. Sword is a simple acronym for five tried and tested ways to come up with ideas for anything. As a writer, I developed this acronym to easily remember the ways that I could always come up with fresh story ideas and be writer's block. In reality, it works for all kinds of brainstorming. So it stands for, first of all, showing people things that you know and services that you can offer. W is thinking about the what, who, and where of the business. O is for observing where there are opportunities, R is for recycling and refreshing, and finally, D is for doing things. Using this five step process helps you jog your memory and provides prompts to pop juicy thoughts into your head. It's an easy and quick way to facilitate creative brainstorming. For each letter of the acronym, I'm going to ask you a lot of questions in the following sections because that's how many great entrepreneurs stumbled upon their great ideas by diving deep and asking questions. Many innovative products, game changing inventions, and outstanding developments were the result of someone asking a question. Let's power through some now in the following lessons. 5. S is For Showing & Services: The first strategy in the sword method is showing people things that you know and offering a service. If you're stumped for new ideas, dig into the trove of things that you're skilled at. What can you show people? Can you become a teacher or instructor of something that you're great at? This is a rather easy starting point because everybody has something that they're skilled at and experiences that are unique to them. Everybody has wisdom to impart. What do you know that people could pay you for? What do you have to offer people? I teach people about the things that I know about and have proven expertise in. I have courses about writing, freelancing, travel journalism, and right now, I'm teaching you how to come up with your best business idea after having found mine. Overall, throughout my career, there are many things I've done that I could teach people about. Think about what you wanted to know when you started doing what you do now. Could you help people that are just getting into the industry that you're in? There are many ways you could teach people, like by becoming a speaker, an education business owner, by developing courses or working with students one to one. Teaching could be an easy way to transition experience from your current or past jobs into a business that suits your lifestyle. Which thing that you're good at and that you also enjoy could you teach people about? If you're a runner, could you help people that are about to run their first marathon? If you love nature, could you run forest bathing retreats? If you love cooking and you're great at making a certain type of dish or cuisine, could you launch a Niche culinary school online or in person? Being an entrepreneur doesn't have to be about building a brand new product. Sometimes you are the product, and your new business has been staring at you all along. Perhaps your best business idea is about you and your essence and your unique strengths. Maybe there's a service you can offer. A service business can be started in any niche or industry, and usually very little capital is required upfront. It's often as easy as creating a website where you offer your services or advertising your offerings in groups or creating a gig on a gig website. Service entrepreneurship is about selling your skills at solutions to people's problems and offering those people the transformations that they're looking for. If you're a handwriting expert, could you offer a handwriting analysis or people wanting to know more about themselves via their handwriting? If you've always been good at reading Tyra cards, could you offer readings, people who are anxious about what's coming in the future, or people who want to understand their pasts a little bit better? Another service business is a consultancy. Could you set up a consulting business? In your past jobs, you might have picked up a specialist expertise in a given area that you could share with others? If you're a fashion buyer or a personal stylist, could you consult about those things? Maybe you did a tet talk and now you can offer consultations on how to speak in public. Leverage something unique about yourself and don't be afraid to think outside the box in terms of what you can offer or show people. 6. W is for What, Who and Where : The W in SRD is for what, who, and where. There are two groups of what questions. What about you, and what about your future enterprise? We shall begin with the questions about you, since this is a discovery session to find out about your lifestyle business. This section is all about you, your life and everything inside it. Your life is full of clues, so we're going to comb through your past and your present to see what we can bring forward to your future lifestyle business? We're going to cast the net very wide and look through all your different corners here with some self inventory questions. For starters, what about your upbringing? What makes up who you are? Do you have parents from different countries? What was your family structure? Are you an only child? Did you grow up in a blended family and can therefore help people navigate that dynamic? The next question about you is, what about your past or your story? What is your life experience? What has happened to you? What have you experienced? Come through your history and think about the good and the bad. What has only happened to you? What's unique about your life story? Is there something funny, peculiar, or groundbreaking in your history? Did you make it to the Olympics as a teenager? Were you home schooled all your life? Did you move from country to country in a yellow van? Did you only just learn how to use the Internet? Are you allergic to ice cream? Your history is probably more interesting than you think. Borrow from your own life and your environment, give you clues about something that you could do? Looking at your family history, do you have an ancestor that did something noteworthy? Could you continue that tradition? Maybe you're somehow related to a household name or an inventor of something famous? For example, if you were a distant relative of Clarence Birdseye, who was the father of the modern frozen food industry, what business could you create capitalizing on that connection as a springboard? What's your story? Do you notice any patterns in your life in your mood or behavior? What events in your past shaped who you are? What was one of the happiest moments in your life? How can you extend this or replicate that feeling? When were you at your most joyful? What were you doing then or what instigated that feeling of joy? Were you dancing, playing, discovering something, or spending time outdoors? When did you feel most satisfied or fulfilled in your life? What contributed to that feeling? What does your success timeline look like? Would people find it inspirational? Did you achieve something in record time? Could you talk about it or help others do the same? What failures have you had in the past or mistakes did you make? And what did you learn from them? Could you help people prevent those same mistakes somehow? What were some of your best and worst decisions? What are the biggest risks you've taken? And did they pay off or not? Perhaps relocating to a new country was a big risk that you took that paid off, and now you can coach people that are about to pick up their lives and move somewhere else. What have you survived or overcome that you could help other people work on? Is there a product or service that you wished existed when you went through something difficult? The next set of what questions are related to your hobbies and interests and preferences. What are your hobbies? This is an important question as there might certainly be one that you can monetize. In my case, I love Trivia, and I'm very competitive. And I've been able to monetize this hobby as an online travel Trivia host, being hired by top companies to host games for them. This is something that comes very easy to me and essentially doesn't feel like work, because I would do this in my free time anyway. Which of your hobbies do you think you could monetize? There are so many simple things you might already love doing, but you don't know that you can actually monetize them. For instance, do you know that there are walking coaches? These people love walking and now run walk and talks with individuals and companies and they get paid handsomely for it? Is there a type of food that you like preparing? Can you host classes on cooking that exact thing? If you like lasagna or hot crust buns, or you're from a Greek island that's known for one particular dish? Could you show people how you make it? What do you actually like? What do you like to do? I love meeting people from all walks of life around the world. So my online travel trivia game is perfect because it puts me in touch with people that I might not otherwise meet. How do you like spending your time? Do you like camping? Are you a fun of the great outdoors? What do people expect from you? What does it make sense for you to do? It doesn't make sense for me to be a writer that focuses on winter sports or fast cars because I've never expressed an interest in the cold or vehicles. So it'd be highly suspicious if I suddenly started talking about these things. Many years ago when I started a swimmare brand, people I knew that I told about the business said, Of course, you are. It made sense that I would want to create swimware, because I absolutely adore the beach life style, and I had so much swimmer already, despite not even living in the tropics at the time. What are you interested in? What topics would you talk about if you and your best friend were locked in a room for 5 hours? What sort of shops do you always go into? It's always a good idea to pursue your genuine interests. Starting a nutrition focused business isn't going to fulfill you if you don't actually have a genuine interest in helping people nourish themselves and live a healthy lifestyle. What are your preferences? If your person likes really obscure ice cream flavor combinations? Maybe there are other people just like you, and therefore, a market for a brand specializing in really obscure ice cream flavors. Now, let's talk about your dislikes and pet peeves. If you could wave a magic wand, what is one thing that you would change about your life? What frustrates you the most about the way things are? What in your life would you like to make even more enjoyable, efficient, or less expensive? Maybe you procrastinate because you hate making decisions. Since many people struggle with indecisiveness, could you remedy this somehow? For instance, with an app that could help them narrow down their options and make a choice? Maybe you could simplify the decision making process by creating an app for people who are interested in astrology that would help them make decisions according to their daily horoscope or zodiac patterns? Which of your own itches do you need scratching? Do you work from home a lot and struggle with your desk setup? Do you hate having mountains of paperwork? Do you dislike your commute? What could make it more enjoyable? What problems are you running into every day? The next what question is about your education and career so far. What is your educational background? What are your qualifications? Do you have multiple degrees? What did you study? Did you specialize in something or wish there was something you focused on more? Could you make up for last time now? What do you love to learn about? When creating a new business, you'll be diving into the deep end of whatever you choose to major in. If you're starting a sustainable fashion brand, you need to know what's happening in the fashion industry, about fabric types, accreditation, and certification bodies that you could join, or how fashion brands calculate your environmental impact. If you're starting a drinks business, you'll need to know about packaging requirements, labeling, health disclaimers and international regulations if you'll be exporting. Thinking about your past jobs, what did you lack or dislike? You want to be able to do less of the things that you dislike and more of the things that you really do like in whatever lifestyle business you develop. You might have a set of skills from your career, but many of them don't bring you joy. Your perfect lifestyle business should tap into your zone of genius, which is the things that you're good at and that you also get a buzz out of. If you're good at sales, but hate doing it, don't create a product that typically relies on direct selling. Down the line, you might be able to afford to pay someone to do the selling for you. But when you first started a business, you might not be able to afford to hire anyone, and therefore, all the sales might depend on you. Are you passionate about any of the things that you're good at? You might be good at public speaking, but that doesn't mean that you'd be excited by the idea of going on the speaking circuit and being a speaker. You might be great at writing funny copy, but you might not enjoy the reality of being a full time stand up comedian. So thinking about your past jobs, what were you really good at and what did you also enjoy? If you really liked doing social media posts and you worked in marketing, could you consider starting a social media consulting business? What industry or type of business would allow you to do the things that you're good at that you have historically also enjoyed? What are your professional strengths or what makes you good at what you do? What are your professional accomplishments? Which jobs, industries, and companies are you currently drawn to and why? If you have a job now, what's the nature of your current work? How do you feel about it? Are there any workplace problems or things you wish were different? Is your chair uncomfortable? What are the people that you work with like? Does your current work honor your set of skills? Speaking of skills, what about your general skills, strengths, and abilities? What is your general degree of ability in any given field compared to the average person? Do you find it easy to do something that most people struggle with? Do you write blog posts faster than most people or type really fast, or run really fast? Are you supremely gifted at something? What's something you do better than anyone else? You might be too humble or shy to admit it, but everybody has their special sauce. Something that sets them apart from the rest. You know you've got one? What realm could you easily dominate? Which industry or business would you have an unfair advantage in? This edge could come from your contacts, network, skills, or experience. How could you leverage this advantage to create a lifestyle business? In my case, I've been getting paid to travel for many years, and I run a location independent business, so I'm in a good position to excel at any enterprise relating to travel, hotels, online businesses, digital products, and courses. Do you have a niche interest that you've studied extensively? In the field of travel writing, So journalists mainly focus on space travel and astrology, and this really sets them apart. What do you do best? What are your strengths? If you're a great talk grow, maybe, you'd be great at hosting your own podcast. Podcast is a portmanteau of iPod and Broadcast. The podcast was added to Apple's Tune Music Store in 2005, and now podcasting is a bona fide industry and absolutely something to look into for people that love communicating and sharing ideas. What are you talented at? Bringing people together. Are you a great manager? Are you a visionary, Are you creative, great with money, very organized, and productive, good with people. If you can't think of what you're good at, what do people often tell you that you're great at? What do friends, family, and colleagues say that you do fantastically? Listen to the nice things people say about you or the compliments that you receive? This is rich information that literally tells you what people already think that you're good at. It also gives you an idea of things people believe you to have knowledge about, that you can then teach or show others. What do people tend to ask you for? What requests do you receive from people on social media? If any, you don't have to be tied to your past experience, by the way. Just because you were a lawyer doesn't mean you can't start a scuba diving school. Your level of expertise should not stop you from entering a new industry if that's where you want to go. You can always train as you go or partner with people who have more experience than you do. Up next, regarding your business acumen? What do you already know about running a business? If you've run businesses in the past, what have you learned? How can you do things differently this time? How could you help people who are just starting their first businesses? What type of company would you specifically be the best person to run? Can you hit the ground running when you launch something? Perhaps, partnering with an existing business owner might be a good idea for you, or maybe you could be an entrepreneur within your existing job? Are there any ways that you can develop something within the company that you currently work for? Again, just a reminder that your level of expertise or lack of entrepreneurial experience should not be a barrier to starting a company. You can always develop new skills or bring skilled people into your organization. The next what question about you is regarding your personality? What are you like? What's your personality? Some businesses and roles simply suit certain people better than others. For instance, a customer facing role might be better for someone that feels energized by talking to people, not drained. What unique quirks do you have? What's your relationship with risk? Are you risk adverse? How would you describe yourself in three words? What businesses would be suited to somebody with those traits? What are the things that you like about yourself? Is it your laugh, for your smile, your ability to make people feel comfortable or your knack for diffusing tension and resolving conflict? What are the things that other people tell you that they like about you? Is it the fact that you're effortlessly charming, a fantastic cook, or a great listener, or is it your sense of adventure? If you're the one that all your friends go to when they have problems because you're a great listener, did you know that there are professional listeners that aren't therapists and don't give advice? They simply make money for listening? That's a niche business that you could create. Thinking about your fitness and health, how active are you? Have you uncovered a set of genius standing up exercises that don't require any equipment? Do you have a specific diet? And could you build a platform for people who would aspire to follow that same path? Do you have a particular health condition, and could you create a community for people in the same position? What could you do in the health and wellness market to improve the well being of people from all backgrounds and abilities? What about inclusive design to cater to people with physical disabilities? There is absolutely a market for accessible product design since this often isn't prioritized during the design process? This includes products like eye tracking remote controls, brail translators for the visually impaired, and personalized lace free sneakers? Could you develop a product of people with certain lifestyles or health conditions that many people don't know about, which could then also benefit other groups. One such condition is dysphasia, a disease where people have difficulty swallowing solid food. Could you oversee the development of a line of food that melts in the mouth completely without the need to chew? If you found a product that would so completely speak to a niche group and answer their problem, you would have an instant community of fans. Now, let's think about the groups and societies that you are a member of? How old are you or what is your age group? What do you do and what professional societies are you in? Where are you from or what town, city or country makes up your identity? Can you bring people together who share this? Are you a member of a marginalized group? How could you potentially support this group? Are you a fan or a follower of a particular subculture? How could you help that subculture advance in the place where you live or find recognition globally? Are you a member of a specific society? Could you try to serve them somehow? Have a look at brand communities. What product or service already has a community or passionate people around it? Could you create something for them? Think about big successful brands that have loyal communities around them like Disney, Crosbit, Apple, or Lego. What can you learn from them? Are you a part of a leisure society or sports team? What does your group mean, or what would you like to give to your group? Let's think about your schedule now. How much free time do you actually have available? How much of yourself are you willing to put into your new business? How much time, money, and effort are you realistically willing and capable of putting in? If you don't have much time on your hands, perhaps you'd be better suited to a more passive venture. How important is work life balance to you? How much leisure time do you need and want to have? How open are you to having strict work or office hours? How flexible can you be about your schedule assembly? Finances now. Finances often play a major role when venturing into the world of entrepreneurship. Certain types of businesses are easier to start if you don't have a lot of capital. The Internet has massively broadened the possible space of careers and businesses, and you can now create a company easily and affordably within minutes. If you're starting out as a solopreneur, your costs may range from zero to whatever you'll need for your equipment and tools, whether that's a laptop, desk, chairs, or internet connection. One of the first money questions to ask yourself is regarding your current financial situation. Do you have the funds to start this lifestyle business, if necessary? Do you need to start a business that makes money immediately, or can you afford to wait for profits to trickle in? If finances aren't on your side, you might need to build something that you can start small with or something that can be quickly validated. Service based businesses can often be started with little to no upfront money at all. If you need to be able to reap profits fast, you could use a freelance site to find work quickly. Money making enterprises that you can start with no funds include a website for afilit marketing, social media content creation, and online stores selling digital products. How much initial money are you willing or able to invest in a new business? If you already have a business idea, what are the barriers to entry in the industry that you are thinking of entering? If you have very little capital, you might have to rethink entering a sector where high costs would be involved like the drinks or the spirits industry? Which one time essential, ongoing, fixed and variable costs would be involved in this business? Will you need financing? What will your overheads be? These are things like rent and utilities. What earning potential do you want or need? Do you need to make a lot of money? What products or services could yield the highest returns? How tolerant of instability and seasonality can you be money wise? Starting a Christmas tree company might not be the best idea if you can't stomach seasonality or if you need a stable and consistent income stream? An ice cream brand would also fall under this category of a seasonal product, depending on where you live or which market you'll be operating? It's often said that you should find your passion and figure out how you can get paid for it. If money wasn't a factor at all, what business would you create? What would you do for free? We're going to think about your values and the things that you're passionate about now. What makes you feel euphoric and energized? What sets your soul on fire? I love discovering new places and immersing myself in new cultures. I get such a high from traveling, and I find it absolutely brilliant that I get to do that for work. I always knew I want to travel to be a part of my life in a real way, which is why travel writing is such a satisfying career option for me. Do you get satisfaction from bringing joy to people's lives? How could you do more of that? Could you create a unique indoor game or a card game with out of the box prompts to make people laugh? Is there something that deep down you feel that you're meant to do? Listen to your instincts. Constructing the life of your dreams is a matter of the heart, as well as the mind. When you're really passionate about something, that gives you the vigor to talk about it, educate people and shout from the rooftops about it? Onto values now. If you were working backwards from your values, what kind of brand would you create? On that helps your community that you're part of or one that you have a strong connection to? What are the non negotiable beliefs that you can't live about? What's your personal definition of success? As in, what would make you feel like you were the most successful according to your definition? Once you identify your core values, you can think about ways to attract people who share them. The next questions are about your future. What do you want your legacy to be? What would you like to be remembered for or associated with? What do you want to leave behind? Think about your retirement speech. What would you feel proud of saying on that day? How best can you create a compelling future for yourself? What would you like your future to look like? Now we've been through all the what questions about you? Let's think about the business that you want to create now. The following, what questions will help you think about the way you'll run the business and what type of enterprise it would be? Firstly, what business type are you interested in? And is this business available in the real world, or is it in cyberspace? Do you want to make digital products only? Products like an online store, developing work press themes, being a mobile app developer, running online events and workshops, podcasting. You could also find success with a paid newsletter or one financed by ads? What about teaching or coaching online, being a virtual assistant, or website flipping? With digital products, your business is fully online and you can run it from wherever you are. Or do you want to make a physical product or run a business in the real world? Offline business ideas include being an adventure or tour guide, birthday party characters like clowns, catering business, child daycare centers, a curated box service, a decluttering service, a green cleaning service, a niche bakery with gluten free products, perhaps, an organic vending machine or spa in a wellness center. Thinking about what type of business you want to have, do you want to create a product or a service based business? Note that there are both physical and virtual products, as well as physical in person services and a virtual service based business? In person service based businesses include boutiques, bars, bakeries, and barbershops? Virtual service based businesses are online therapists, coaches, and educators, consultants, graphic designers, or web developers? One of the benefits of a service based business, that you can charge people for your time. If they value your time, you can charge people for whatever you want because your time is valuable. The downside of a service based business is that they're less scalable. If you're a barber or a hair dresser, you can only see so many clients in one day. So it's worth thinking about the correlation between the time you have available and the amount of money you would like to make. If you're a hairdresser, you can't see 50 clients in one day. But if you sold a hairstyling product, you could realistically sell 50 products in one day, and your sales would not be directly linked to your time or your output. Another question relating to the type of business that you want to have is, do you see this new endeavor as a side hustle, or would you want to do it full time? What specialization would you like to have? Do you want to be a Swiss Army knife where you do many things well, or do you want to be a bread knife and specialize in one thing? What business model would you like to adopt? Premium, Ad model, on demand or marketplace? Examples of businesses that have a premium model include Zoom, Spotify, and Skype. Social media giants like Instagram and Pintras, rely on ads. While Uber and Lift are examples of on demand services, and AirBNB, Amazon, and Ebay are online marketplaces. Which of these types of businesses are you interested in? Also, are you looking to develop the next pain killer or a hot vitamin? A vitamin is a nice to have while a pain killer is something people absolutely need or something that responds to a pressing problem like access to clean water in a community. What company product or service do you wish existed, but doesn't yet? Part of being an entrepreneur is believing in and fighting for something that nobody else believes in yet. We've now gone through all the what questions and now we'll be going into the probing, who questions next? 7. Who Questions: The first and most important who question to help you think of a new business idea is, who can you help? Who is your ideal audience? Who would you like to serve? You might have a group in mind already or you could think about one set of people that are currently under served. Perhaps you'd like to help people living in remote or rural areas get medicine and food products delivered. Could you set up a drone delivery company? Whose problems would you be proud to solve? Who do you identify with? Which demographic or type of client would you be glad to assist? Who would benefit from the skills and experience that you have? If you're a near a scientist, could you think up ways to solve problems by everyday appliances and accessories like headphones that know when you're distracted and help realign your focus? If you're a developer or have tech skills, what problem could you solve with a software as a service tool? How could you help companies automate their most repetitive tasks? Could you help turn an analog business digital? Could you help perhaps digitize physical businesses by converting their paper documents to electronic files? This could be either all their files or you could do it on an on demand basis. If you're a traveling photographer, could you create a marketplace for photographers all around the world to pair up with people who need specific types of photo shoots? Maybe last minute photo shoots, wedding photography, sunset shots, or some kind of niche? If you're an engineer, could you design home robots that help with household chores for people with mobility issues? If you've been a digital nomad for many years, how could you help remote working distributed teams collaborate better? How could you put your specific skills to use to solve people's problems? What can you make happen for someone else that would excite you? Would it be helping them fulfill their weight loss goals as a personal trainer or helping them design the cover of their first sef published book as a graphic designer? With your new company, who could you help fulfill their dreams and live out your business hopes? In the California Gold rush, some of the people who were the most profitable were the ones who facilitated the dream by providing shovels, tents, and materials. One of them was Samuel Brannan, who was considered California's first millionaire. He sold shovels. Supplying people with what they need to pursue their dreams can be quite lucrative. Having a very specific target audience in mind will help you further down the line as you'll be able to find product market fit faster and construct your marketing messages for more impact. Once you have an idea of who those people are or what your ideal target group is, think about what they like and what tickles them. What are their life philosophies? What are their interests? Is it interiors, social media, design, entrepreneurship, fashion, or gardening? What do these people want more of? Love, money, acceptance, free time, connectedness, sustainability, empowerment, equality, adventure, what do they want less of? Hassle, stress, conflict, uncertainty, or loneliness. What keeps them up at night? And how can you help these people resolve the tensions in their lives? Take this one group and think of how you could help them specifically. If you wanted to help people with mobility issues see the world, you could create a website. Let's people cruise around different places while listening to a local radio station from each place. It could be driven by advertising revenue or donations. If you wanted to serve remote workers, you could launch a communal living space in your city with workshops, master minds, and a live in chef. Whose burning pains can you help to ease? Every pain point that someone has can be an actual feature of your future product or service. For example, the dating app Bumble was created for women who felt that they were inundated with inappropriate messages from men. Bumble solved this problem by developing an app so that only women could make the first move and initiate the first contact. Another who question to bring you sparks of inspiration is who can help you with your new business? Who do you know that you can partner with? Is there an individual that you respect and hold so highly that you just know this person has a role to play in your life? Who do you know that's great at something that you think could bring magic to your business? Whose expertise would you need to create a business? To launch your own video game, you'll need coders, developers, artists, and producers, and then marketing and distribution people once it's ready, as well as technical people for debugging, and data analysts to monitor player life cycles, monetization, and engagement? That's a whole team of people. Keep the amount of labor you might need at the back of your mind when you're thinking of what type of company you might like to create? Another who question is, who do you admire? Who would you trade with if you could swap careers with anybody? Whose company do you wish you started and why? Thinking of an individual you look up to, what makes them so admirable, and how could you emulate their genius or work with them? Who would you actually like to work with on this new business? Would you like to work with your family, a friend, or find a new person? Who is the Ying to your Yang? Which personality types do you get along with the best? Which people make you feel most like yourself? It's the people who are outgoing, creative, passionate, quiet, loud, or laid back. Who would you have the best time being around, even if your work wasn't very exciting? What type of person tends to appreciate and celebrate all that you are? These are great people to go into business with? It's important to think about if you would actually like to work with or partner with anyone at all? Perhaps you'd prefer to be a solo printer and work by and for yourself. A solopreneur is someone who creates a business with no intention of ever adding employees into the mix. They're happy running a one person business and don't want to be managers. This does not mean that they will always be alone or that they never collaborate with other people. It just means that they steer the ship and always will. Who you want to be around every day is an important question when thinking about a business that works for your desired lifestyle. One more question is, who could you sell your service to that would help you make more money than you currently do? For instance, our traditional Florist selling bouquets directly to consumers could significantly bolster their profits by pivoting to a b2b business, making floral art for events or runways. Changing the target audience could allow the florist to become a botanical artist for large scale clients and make more with high ticket items. 8. Where Questions: Now, let's move on to the where prompts. First of all, where do you live? What does it do best? And what does it lack? Can you get a first mover advantage by bringing something from somewhere else to that place that you live? Could you be the first pizza delivery company in your city or town to use driverless cars or drones? Where are you from? What's notable about that place? Dig into its history. Was it the first place to do something or was something invented there? Is there something about that place that people would love to be involved in? If you happen to be from the tiny Check town where the dollar was invented, maybe you could create a business centered around that. Will you perhaps be a rural entrepreneur? Could you develop something that helps people starting businesses outside of cities without access to big urban ecosystems? Is there a place you know or feel connected to that is not currently economically flourishing that you would like to help transform into a thriving, vibrant hotbed of abundance? Where do you love to spend your free time? In the ocean, outdoors, in a specific village, city, town, or country? What could you do that would help you spend as much time there as possible? Are there any new geographies you can tap into? Can you go abroad and offer an existing product to a different country that could benefit from it? 9. O is For Observing Where There Are Opportunities: The O in sort stands for observing where opportunities might be. The first tip regarding observations is to analyze trends. What were the most red articles of the year? What were people most curious about? Look at search trends as well to find ideas. Use Google trends and keyword finders to discover what people are searching for in different places all around the world. Investigate the charts. This could be the music charts, the box office, the book bestsellers list, or sales lists. What's capturing people's imaginations and attention, and where are they spending their money? Looking at the charts and sales figures will help you tap into the current cultural Ziguist. What products are breaking records? And could you improve those products somehow? Look at compilations, year end lists, and historical sales figures. The New York Public library has existed for over a century and revealed the most checked out books in its entire history. There was only one non fiction book in the top ten most popular list, and that was Dale Carnegie's how to win friends and influence people. This says a lot about what people keep looking for. Analyze the activity in forums? Go to known idea stations like Cora and read it to see what people are talking about and what the trending topics are? What bandwagon could you jump on quickly? Look at the questions that are being asked on CRA and perhaps try to think of what products or services could be answers to people's questions. Also, read the article comments on popular websites and complaints to people leave on review sites like Yelp, Google Reviews, or trip advisor, or online stores. What are people happy or unhappy about? What's the biggest complaint? If you're creating a luggage brand for millennial women, join a Facebook group for female millennial travelers and see what's being said about existing brands. What do people like and dislike? What are they looking for that they don't already have? Products and services that are a direct response to what people ask for have a higher chance of success. It's better to build something that's a response to people are 't happy about rather than things that they are totally satisfied with. How can you help people solve problems that they talk about openly? Your competitors customer complaints are an opportunity for you to do things better. If you went to the page of a product that's doing really well on Amazon and had a look at the negative reviews, could you fix those pain points that people are complaining about in your own product? Just watch how people do things. Could the processes be streamlined somehow? Where do you feel people waste your time? How could those things be done better? Sometimes you get a better idea by just watching rather than asking. The famous quote from Ford Motor Company industrialist Henry Ford, explains this perfectly. He said, If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses. Keeping your eyes and ears open and just observing how people do things is just as good as actually asking people questions about what they do and what they want. If you currently have a job, where are their opportunities to improve processes? Regarding the employees? How could they be happier or do their jobs better? Regarding internal processes like accounting, human resources, and marketing? How could technology make them more efficient? Regarding the company's core services? What out of the box ways could they be produced or delivered better faster or in a less costly manner? Can those products be sold in a new market? How transferable are those products? If you currently have a business, pay attention to all those, wouldn't it be good if conversations? Do you repeatedly get requests from people for a particular service? Has anyone ever said any chance we'll be offering X Y Z soon? Is there something people tend to ask you for help with? The last prompt regarding observations is to look at cultural shifts and think about which ones you could capsulize on. Let's think about some societal changes that have impacted businesses now. Whereas second hand clothes used to be seen as uncool? Now, they're viewed as trendy and more sustainable. Could you start a thrifting business, a fabulous vintage shop for a specific type of good like luxury bags or sneakers? Here are some other cultural shifts to think about. People shop online more than ever, and many brick and mortar stores are moving online. Could you look into introducing secure delivery lockers in central areas of cities so people don't have to wait around for their parcels? As remote work becomes more normalized, technology will play a bigger role in how we communicate and collaborate. Not everyone is Tech Savvy, however, and some people will need help adjusting to this. Could you consult with businesses or help them train your staff if this is something that you already know about? Could you help people dealing with fatigue from being on endless video calls? How can you help companies with hybrid workforces combat digital overload? Could you develop software that gives warnings after a meeting has run for a certain amount of time to force people to take breaks? With the increase in distributed working, there may also be more demand from employers for surveillance tech that monitors how much people are working? Is there scopes develop some sort of tool in that arena? Companies are also becoming more invested in the wellness of their teams? Employer sponsor therapy, coaching, meditation, and even retreats might also be a worthwhile focus? A 10. R is For Recycling and Refreshing: B R in SRD stands for recycling and refreshing existing ideas and products. The Webster English dictionary defines recycling as the act of reusing, bringing back or adapting to a new use. The next tips are all about taking existing ideas or things, adapting and improving them somehow, or repurposing them for new markets and uses. You don't necessarily have to create a brand new company to run a successful one, and you don't have to reinvent the wheel. You can take an existing business that just needs little TLC and refresh it, and the results could be extraordinary. By putting a simple spin on an existing item, you could create an entirely new, valuable product for an entirely new audience. What business could you buy and take to another level? You can look on website flipping sites to find companies that are being sold. Could you create a refreshed or updated version of something somebody has already done? Think of your favorite products or services. What would make them better? How could you improve the experience that people have when they cut their hair or have their makeup done? Can you introduce augmented reality into the experience somehow so that they could see how they might look with different styles? How could you adapt or enhance a product? How can you create more value for customers and users of that product? Do you love a certain product, but the packaging it comes in is drab and uninspiring? Could you create a similar product where packaging isn't an after thought, and you use boxing to stand out? Some products actually become even more famous because of the attractive packaging? Your packaging could even be your USB, which stands for unique selling point. Picky backing off an idea that's already successful is a great starting point for a business? You can then take one element of that business and make it better like the variety of flavors available for a drink, the customer service, or the price or the speed of delivery? Can you make something better by changing its size? Once upon a time, we might not have even been able to imagine tiny touchscreen mobile phones. Devices were huge and clunky. Now phones are slim enough to carry around comfortably. Maybe you can refresh the distribution channel for an existing product? When all its flights were grounded by the pandemic, FI Air started selling its airplane food in grocery stores. Similarly, Singapore Airlines turned some of its grounded planes into pop up restaurants, and they were extremely popular. Can you apply a well known business model to a different product, industry, place, or group of people? Could you build the Uber for X or the AirBNB for Y? If you saw that a neighboring city has opened its first cafe specifically for writers who have deadlines, could you bring that place to where you live? What about a cat cafe? These originated in Taiwan and have now spread all around the world. Could you take the concept of a cat cafe or a place where people could spend time with animals and launch that where you are? How could you position a brand in a new location? There are so many ways you can build an existing business idea. Same product or service, different price, same product or service, different location, same idea, different industry, same product or service, different delivery method, or even same product, different color? Would you like to reinvent or spruce up something in a particular industry? In travel, would you like to get people out of all inclusive resorts and give them deep experiential travel experiences or secret journeys where they have no information prior to departure? How could you tackle a service or product in a way that nobody has done before? Have you ever had a blind folded online therapy session? Perhaps being unable to see what heights in other senses and help people feel more involved or take away the shyness or social anxiety. Could you help improve the experience of buying books by adding surprise and wonder to it? Perhaps you can sell books with concealed covers or wrap them in paper and give them small clues about the content or the author of the book? What can you add or remove from an existing product? If you're a travel agent, could you create very lean itineraries with just one activity per day? Perhaps your USB would be the people would have only one opportunity to explore something and therefore be more likely to go deeper. What subtractive solutions could help you stand out? How can you simplify a product by eliminating certain elements? We don't often think of removing things when we're coming up with solutions to problems? We often default to addition. What would happen if you swapped one thing for another in an existing product? What products could you combine to create a new one? Could you mix and match products that have different uses and create a compound product and therefore revolutionize an industry? Smart suitcases that have inbuilt phone chargers are an example of this. Another means of creating something new is when two existing companies collaborate or merge. These could be two completely different businesses that collide to form a new super product that draws fans from both worlds, like a sports brand, teaming up with a niche perfumer or a condiment company, creating a limited drop with a makeup brand? 11. D is For Doing Things: The last tool in sword is doing things. Here are some things that you can actually do to get your creative juices flowing and come up with some brilliant business ideas? Go digging through your very own treasure. Read through very old e mails, texts, or even school essays you wrote for insight into what your younger self thought or wanted? Reading the old essays that I wrote from my psychology classes at University was very enlightening and provided me with at least five topic ideas. When you look back at your past, what did you complain about that you still complain about now? Would you now like to get those problems solved? Travel is notorious for opening up the senses. Go somewhere you haven't been before, but look at a familiar place in a new way. Travel somewhere and compare how people there do something differently. Look around at which tools or materials you already have lying around. If you have a sewing machine, what could you create with it? Do you have paint and brushes? Play the what if game. Wherever you are right now, look at the things you see around you and ask how they could be changed? For instance, if you pick up one item, ask yourself? What if it reached me through a different channel? What if the shape, size, weight, or color is different? What if the materials, ingredients, or smells were different? What if it was cheaper or more expensive? What if the functionality or speed was different? What if this product was combined with something else that I see around me? What if this product was created for a different demographic? What if this product became obsolete today? What would replace it? Asking what if about a product that you're curious about can be a powerful innovation strategy. Something else that you can do to come up with business ideas is to write down three business ideas every day for ten days. They won't all be great. In fact, some of them will be absolutely rubbish, but this will train your brain to get in the habit of scanning for possibilities. At the end of the ten days, you can review the list. At that point, you'll have a whopping 30 ideas to evaluate and explore. Also, each idea will generate others and new questions for you as well. For the next ten days, write down a list of your complaints, pain points, and the problems that you encounter during your day. Your pet Ps might be more revealing than you think. Ask three to five people that are closest to you what you can't stop talking about. What do they often hear you say or complain about? Which topics do they believe that you're most interested in? The people in your inner circle might know things about you that you aren't even aware of. Tap into their knowledge as a quicker route towards insights about yourself. Don't hide your entrepreneurial ambitions from the people in your life. Many projects emerge organically out of conversations that you have. It could be that someone you know also harbors dreams of starting your own business, and you might even find someone to partner with. Have deep conversations with people. Ask your most opinionated friend or someone that you know loves to talk for their advice on something, anything at all. Talking to people is a great way to get ideas. Actively ask people about the problems in their lives. Conduct a survey among your friends, and feel free to ask strangers too. Consume business related media and listen to thought leaders. Successful founders and titans of business often feature on broadcasts and in blogs and newsletters providing snippets of wisdom and talking about their thoughts on different industries. Follow, read and listen to Tim Ferris, Seth Godin, Tim urbin, Jen Sensero, James Clear, Esther Perel, Rem Seti, Daniel Presley, or Brene Brown, who is a popular researcher specializing in leadership, shame, and vulnerability. C heck business forecasts and predictions. For example, if you heard that in a couple of years, drones and sophisticated flying robots would account for the majority of home deliveries to save costs. What could you do to get involved and capitalize on this early? How can you cut a piece of the pie before others arrive to the party? Check changes in legislation. What new laws have been passed that will allow people to do something that they couldn't do previously? For instance, product placement in films used to be banned in the United Kingdom. Once that ban was lifted, all sorts of companies would have been able to come in and provide services such as digitally adding new product placements to classic films? To see into the future, track corporate patents and trademark filings. This can be a great way to see how companies are innovating and stay on top of technological developments. The next tip is to look into untapped and underserved consumer groups. Gens and millennials get all the column inches, but what about older shoppers? What about made to order custom hair dyes, people who don't want an out of the box solution? Carry out industry research if you have a particular sector that you're interested in. Look up statistics, facts, or general truths and data about that industry. Search places like uro Monitor and Mintel for statistics about industries and take those cold hard facts as a sriting point. For instance, more than half of US households have a pet. So the pet care accessories and food industry is a pretty safe bet. Need to know what environment you're stepping into, so study your industry very carefully. Which markets pay well? Do businesses typically need a lot of capital to enter that industry? What are the barriers to entry? Who are the major players in that industry? Examples of growing markets in emerging industries are cryptocurrencies, clothing rental companies, gig economy platforms, and smart home devices. The smart home market has grown exponentially. Think about smart speakers, temperature regulated showers, thermostats, and light dimmers. What about a smart fridge that sends you notifications when you run out of milk or your favorite food item or an oven that you can switch off remotely? Which industries are rapidly changing? Automation, AI, advanced manufacturing, and telecommuting are all dramatically changed the nature of work. Employees will need to be prepared for the jobs that don't exist yet, and the ways work is changing. How could you help them prepare for those changes? As cash disappears from people's wallets, FinTech companies are stepping up and replacing physical banks and empowering people to take over their finances and even invest at the touch of a button? It banks have taken on legacy financial establishments with transparent banking practices, quick sign ups, and no fees? How can you get involved in the changes in the banking industry? Contrastingly, which industry is overdue for disruption? Which industry is begging for innovation? Packaged instant noodles have been around since the 1950s, but how much have they changed in that time? Could you make a more nutritional option? What sector do you feel has been stagnant for far too long? Can you build something that doesn't yet exist to change an industry that rarely does? Which industries are in danger of dying out? And how could you revive? Also, look at unattractive industries. What businesses seem less exciting or alluring and don't get talked about as much. While everyone's trying to create the next big social media platform or SAS tool, what about an industry like storage? There's big money to be made from helping people keep their belongings, given society's rampant consumption habits. What about commercial cleaning or used furniture? The fact that these businesses tend to stay out of the spotlight might mean you have less competition. How about self service laundromats? There might be large costs up front for these, but afterwards, they don't need much hands on labor, and the return on investment is high. Other unattractive, but potentially rewarding start up ideas include the workwear market, uniforms, medical scrubs, or indoor farming? These industries are less exciting but potentially profitable. Another good way to come up with a new business idea is to look into how you can do well by doing good. How can you make people's lives better all around the world? How can you better the world itself? What wrongs would you like to right? What do you wish more people knew? What would you like to raise awareness about? What cause or mission drives you? What do you most want to change in the world? Is it hunger, wealth, inequality, access to education, or climate change? Environmental concerns are changing people's consumption patterns? What could you do around conservation, and how could you put sustainability first? How can you help people be kinder to the environment? Let's go through some purpose driven business ideas now. How about a hotel that only uses solar energy or an accessory or clothing brand made with fabric scraps? How about a flight free travel agency that only books trips via trains and coaches? Could you create an app or digital outfit planner that helps people sort out their clothes so they could make the most of their existing wardrobes and therefore feel less tempted to buy new things? How about a plant based meal delivery service with chickpea based pizzas or protein bars that are made with cocked powder? What about a sustainable vegan sneaker brand or vegan pet food? To help people curtail packaging waste. Could you set up a refill station or create biodegradable plastic packaging? How about a no packaging shop? Could you take a popular type of product that's normally in plastic packaging and use a more sustainable vessel like bottles or cans? Could you create or use a type of packaging that uses water based ink to reduce water pollution? What about environmentally friendly laundry products or a food product that isn't genetically modified and has no harmful additives? Could you help reduce food waste and help feed people at the same time? Another global problem is clean water. Could you create some sort of affordable water purification system or a stylish purifying water bottle for people to use on the go? To tackle discrimination, could you develop recruitment technology that could be used around the world to prevent hiring biases? This could be by blind candidate screening or a training company that teaches organizations how to identify and prevent discrimination? You don't necessarily have to think about great big problems. You can tackle locally important causes or problems in your town or city. Doing good also doesn't automatically mean that you need to set up a charity. You can still be a for profit enterprise and have a positive contribution to society. To find inspiration about our cause and value driven companies, look at businesses that have certifications and third party accreditations like BCO, which encourages businesses to demonstrate commitment to society, suppliers, employees, and the environment. Another great international organization is 1% for the planet, which was founded to certify reputable giving and prevent greenwashing. Member companies give 1% of all profits to approved nonprofit partners. Some businesses join as a whole. While for some companies, it's just one brand or product line. Take a look at these accreditation bodies and environmental advocacy groups and see what kind of companies are part of them and how they innovate or stand out. Another question to help you brainstorm purposeful business ideas is what would you like the world to look like in five, ten, or 20 years? What doesn't exist yet that you would like to see in the world? How can you inspire change in the company or industry you currently work in? If you could create just one global law or rule, what would it be? What does a better future look like and how can you be part of that change? 12. Evaluating Your Ideas: Congratulations. You made it this far and you're one step closer to discovering your best business idea. Since this class is about creating a business that aligns with your lifestyle goals, these goals should be at the forefront of your mind as you evaluate any of the ideas you come up with. You are evaluating ideas based on personal fit. Remember that we set out to solve two common problems. The inability to generate business ideas and coming up with generic ideas that don't suit your specific vision for your life. So let's go back to that vision that you have for your life. It's time to refer to the one word goal and the ten work and lifestyle goals that you wrote earlier. Ideally, by now, the questions in this class have helped you unlock some ha lightbulb moments, and some juicy business ideas have popped into your head. For each business idea that you came up with while going through the prompts in this class, how would creating that particular business help you live and work on your terms? Now, have a look at the evaluation sheet that is provided for you with this course. There is space for you to write your one word goal and the ten work and lifestyle goals along the left of the sheet. Fill in all the business options that you came up with along the top. Put number one in the cell of each of the criteria that the new business idea meets so that you can get a total. The business option with the best personal fit for you is one that meets all of your goals. 11 out of 11. You can, of course, proceed with the ideas that meet some, but not all of your goals. The ones with the lowest scores are the ones that are the least suitable for you and are better off being abandoned. Every option you cross off your list brings you one step closer to the right lifestyle business for you. To illustrate how best to evaluate your business ideas? Let's think about our fictional character, Alex? Alex's defining one word is flexibility? He would examine any business ideas according to how much flexibility it gave him. With Alex's five work goals, he would ask, How creative could he be? Would he have mornings off? Would he have flexible hours? Would he have total autonomy, and could he wear whatever he wanted to work? With Alex's five lifestyle goals, he would ask, Would this business grant him location independence? Could he make money while he sleeps? Could he only live in warm places? Could he have a regular sleep pattern, and could he wake up without an alarm? Let's say that Alex has come up with ten business ideas during this course. Checking them against his requirements, some can immediately be discarded. Three out of ten are perfect, and three almost meet all of his criteria. As you can see, the ones that meet all of his criteria are podcast host, Niche blog Owner, and being a remote business coach. Having a word press website design agency, being a travel specialist or one to one coach, and being a contract project manager meet almost all of his requirements. The ones that meet the fewest of his desired work and lifestyle goals should be crossed off the list immediately. That means being a personal chef, part owner of a night club, and opening a Niche health center somewhere would not serve his lifestyle aspirations. Being a podcast host, running a Niche blog, and becoming a remote business coach are Alex's top three options, and they also meet his one word goal, which is flexibility. These are the three best options that he should move forward with and evaluate. Remember that your goals are your roadmap to get where you want to go. They are the things that you want more of in your life to live at the best way for you right now. Ally, at this stage, you should have some strong competing options that match all or most of your criteria and that you feel most excited about. Once you have a short list, ask yourself whether creating one of those businesses would help you achieve your one sentence goal, which is your top priority. Throughout the process, you'll play around with many ideas, but when you get that strong ah ha, or eureka feeling, you're probably onto something. Which project do you feel most excited about? Looking at your brilliant business idea options. Evaluating them and narrowing them down based on your very own criteria should give you a wave of confidence about your new direction. In the next lesson, we'll look at how to bring those ideas to life. 13. Testing and Taking Action: Idas are nothing without action. To catch a ball, it first has to be thrown. Once you've identified the idea or ideas that could become a fulfilling lifestyle business for you, the next stage is testing and then taking action. It isn't advisable to dive into the deep end with your new idea without validating it first. It might be tempting to just take the plunge, particularly if you find the idea very exciting. But you shouldn't skip the research phase because in order to be profitable, you'll have to create something that somebody else needs or wants. You want to discover as much about the reality of running that business as possible and see what it's like on the inside, and there are many ways that you can do this. If you're going to be retraining or exploring a new industry, take a class or course about it to see if you actually enjoy learning about that topic. Attend meet ups and networking events to try and rub shoulders of people who work in that industry and ask them questions about their lives. Reach out to somebody that already does what you would like to do and interview them. Take them out to lunch and probe them about everything that you want to know. Ask them about what a day in their life looks like. Perhaps shadow somebody that runs a similar business and see what their day to day looks like. What are their working hours and what's the nature of the work? And do you think it might work for you? If one of your potential business ideas is opening your own graphic design agency, offer your services for free to a couple of people and see if you enjoy it and see what feedback you get. If you're building a physical product, create a tester or a mini version of it and see if you make any sales. This will give you an idea about the financial viability of your business idea. Offering a service or product for pre sale before it's fully developed is a great way to get an idea of what demand would be like. Create a survey that you send out to potential clients and customers to assess market demand. You could post this in a private forum or send out an e mail to your contacts. Write a summary of what you plan to offer to your audience and take note of their reactions. Positive feedback suggests that it's worth proceeding with development. To get feedback about your potential business, share it with people in your target group, your close circle of friends, or even strangers. If you have a social media following, post questions to your followers and see who bites, you can then reach out to those people with further detailed questions that might help you refine your offering or a pivot, if necessary. Run experiments and try to find out as much as possible about your potential industry and customers before you invest your time, money, and effort, so you don't commit to something prematurely. Sample a couple of the business ideas and observe how running them makes you feel. Then, after you've tested, use the data or information that you've collected to get started and take action, which is what will bring you the most clarity. 14. Making it Real: It is my wish for you that by this point, you've been struck by bolts of inspiration for some business ideas, evaluate them according to unique criteria, narrow down the most promising options, and thought about how to take action and make your new lifestyle business a reality. Before we part ways, I would like to leave you with the manifestation exercise to motivate you and give you the vigor and confidence to work on your dream. Creating your list of goals was the way to plug your destination into the GPS. Now, I would like you to imagine what it feels like when you arrive there and when you actually attain those goals. I would like you to write a letter to your future self, outlining your hopes and wishes right now, and imagining that they have all come true. In five years. How much money are you making from your business? How many customers do you have? What is the range of your products or services you offer? Do you have employees? What does it look and feel like to be living and working on your own terms? Write it all down and delight in the satisfaction of running a fulfilling business that compliments your lifestyle. The best way to predict the future is to create it. Hopefully, this class helps you create that future by finding your best business idea, and it's the best one because it's all about you, who you are, what you want out of life. Thank you so much for joining me for this class. I wish you the best of luck in your journey towards becoming a lifestyle entrepreneur, and I hope you build a business that you actually like that can help you build a life that you love.