Deciding what kind of business to start is an incredibly personal thing. So rather than throw a lot of possible ideas at you, let’s talk instead about how you can make the decision for yourself.
In deciding to start your own business, you must first think of what you’ll be able to do for the rest of your life without burning out. Most people who dream about starting a business think only about the money. In reality, though, the money will only drive you for a few years. After that, if you don’t have a passion for the work itself, you’ll soon find yourself wanting to give up the business. The key: let your passion drive you.
How do you find out what passion would make a good business? First, spend some time brainstorming. Try to write own at least 50 things that you love doing. It could be anything from tutoring kids to collect stamps to eating apple pie. If you feel passionate about it, it goes on your list.
Next, write down a list about everything that you’re good at. It doesn’t matter if it’s big (you’re good at brain surgery) or small (you’re good at clipping your fingernails). Write it down.
Now look on both lists. Are there any areas that cross over onto both lists? Maybe your list of passions includes a love for books and magazines, and your list of talents includes writing. Then perhaps your business should include freelance writing. That’s just one suggestion, but hopefully you get the idea.
Hopefully at this point, you still have several possibilities—ones that cross from one list to the other. Now it’s time to make your final selection—the one that will serve as the business you’re going to try to start. Examining the areas that you are both passionate about and good at doing, is there something that you can envision making lots of money doing it?
Let’s take both a bad and a good example. Perhaps your list showed that you feel passionate about stamp collecting, and that you have a talent for recognizing one stamp from another by the taste of the glue on the back. Interesting talent, but there might not be many ways of making money from it.
On the other hand, let’s say your list shows that you have a passion for cooking and that you’re good at it. Certainly there are a thousand ways to make money cooking food! So now you have a launching point. Even here, though, you can brainstorm many ideas: Maybe you’ll start a recipe or even create your own unique recipe and develop your own packaged food product.
The key is to brainstorm as many ideas as possible and keep zeroing in until you come up with the one that works best for you. Do a bit of research and go through web, periodicals, federal and state agencies. A visit to the library or a couple of hours online can help you understand your market better. Also know who the players are in your domain and understand how they deal with their business.
Once you have deicided what is good for you, next thing is to not lose objectivity while being passionate about your ideas. Take the time to thoroughly plan and research, and not go ahead with execution, otherwise you will only spend valuable dollars on unfocused and untargeted activities.
-Richard Write
Click on “Comments” below to add/view comments.
