How do you go about finding the right business idea for you? The best ideas are always the simplest, so we should keep the searches as close to home as possible. It’s generally a mistake to think that a business venture has to be into something exotic. Quite the contrary – the more familiar you are with the idea, the easier it will be to make it a success.
Use the following as starting points to help you find the right business idea.
Converting what you do on your job into a business
Very often the best business ideas can be found in the job you’re in right now. If you can take what it is you’re doing for your employer, and convert it into an activity that you can sell to clients and outside customers, you may have landed on the best business idea possible.
There are a number of advantages to doing exactly this:
- Since you are already doing on your job the kind of work you will do in your business, you probably won’t need to get any additional training.
- Since you have experience and even a routine, you’ll have the kind of confidence in your work that all business owners need.
- Converting your job to a business will be a lot less risky than plunging into something completely new.
- If the new business venture fails, you can always go back to your old job or to a new one, with no break in your work experience.
An example of converting your job skills to a business will be someone who is working as a bookkeeper on their job, offering their services out to multiple clients and customers on a retail basis. Another example is a person who handles IT on the job, that offers his or her services out the general public.
See what skills you use on your job that you could sell to the public.
Doing what you know – but don’t do on your job
For some people the best skills they have are ones that they never use on the job. For example, you might be an accountant who is also a whiz with computers. You may not get much of an opportunity to use those computer skills on your job, but you may be able to take them and use them as the basis for starting side business. As the business grows, you can begin thinking about quitting your accounting job and making your computer business your full-time occupation.
Make a list of all of the skills that you have, but don’t forget to include those that you don’t use on your job. It may turn out to your best and most marketable skills – from a self-employment standpoint – are not at all related to the work that you are currently doing.
Doing what you love
This is more risky than converting your job skills to a business, but it can also be a major reason why your business will be more successful than you ever dreamed.
In most cases, our highest income earning capability will be found in doing work that we like best. While that may seem self-evident, most people take a job in order to meet financial obligations, then settle into it and make it a career. Whether or not they actually like the work never enters into the equation.
The typical outcome of that arrangement is either job burnout, or planning your career around retirement (usually early retirement). On the retirement side, the idea is often that you’ll begin doing work that you actually like once you retire, and can afford a pay cut.
But what if you didn’t wait until retirement to start doing what you really like to do? If you like the work enough, you may actually find that you no longer have interest in ever retiring at all! And once again, if you really like the work that you are doing in your own business, there’s a better than even chance that you will make more money than you ever have.
Doing work that you actually like to do is a greatly underestimated “secret” to business success. So along with inventorying your skills, spend an equal amount of time determining what it is you actually like to do.
Trying something entirely new
This is where the truly high risk business ideas come from. Since you are stepping out of your comfort zone – often well outside of it – the risks are increasing commensurately. For that reason, this is not the recommended course in determining the right business for you – even though it may be the main method people use to find business ideas.
But if you are going to go this route, there are some steps you can take to minimize the risks:
- Thoroughly research any new business idea before taking a plunge into the business itself.
- Find a mentor who could help you learn the business.
- Apprentice into the business before entering it – a good example would be taking a part-time job in the kind of business you want to go into.
- Start the business as a side venture, that way you have your full-time job in case the business fails.
- Avoid putting serious money into the venture until you can prove that you can first generate a cash flow.
- Make sure you have a well thought out back-up plan – failure is a definite possibility here.
If none of these suggestions look scientific, that’s because finding the right business idea has a definite hit-or-miss quality to it. Consider using each of these methods to come up with the right business idea, or better yet, blend two or three methods. If you find a business idea doing work that you love, where you already have tangible skills, your chances of succeeding in the business will multiply dramatically.
