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Business How to Start a Business Discovery Value Proposition

Where and how to start?

How do I actually find the right idea for my business? I am very good at learning programming and other technical courses because they are pretty straightforward. You do step A then step B then step C to get a result. When it comes to business, I feel overwhelmed. My mind is like blank whenever I think of something abstract or start from scratch. How do I overcome this mental block? I want to find an idea for business, but I can't think of anything. Maybe I am not meant to be an entrepreneur or what?

I want to be my own boss someday. Create something great and of course be financially free.

Thanks in advance for feedback.

Phil White
Phil White
Courses Plus Student 9,519 Points

Hi,

I'm here a bit late lol but i am on the opposite of the spectrum. i have a great idea, well thought out and fully visualized in a business plan. but i need a App developer and designer. If your interested in teaming up reply to this and i'll send you my contact details.

Hope to speak soon!

Phil

8 Answers

From how you described yourself I would suggest that you network and try to find the right partner. Some people by nature are better at handling abstract ideas, while others are better on the back end. Take Apple for example. Steve Jobs was the ideas and face of the company, Woz was the technical skills. It took both of them to build the company into what it is today. Your natural ability to quickly understand and move through these courses will provide you with skills that anyone will desire.

If you don't want to work with a partner then use that as encouragement to keep you moving forward solo. Don't pressure yourself for ideas immediately, let it happen organically. Analyze your day to day life to find what needs to be developed or redeveloped for better use.

Good luck!

Robbie Rice
Robbie Rice
2,448 Points

Hi, For what it's work, I don't think the idea is the most important part of having a successful business - Google, Apple, Samsung and so on - none of those guys invented anything new, they took existing ideas and made them better. There are two types of business - vitamins and pain killers. The first is something that creates joy, the second is something that relieves pain. An example of the first might be Lush, the British cosmetics firm - they took an industry that has been around for ever and simply made it more of a sensory experience. A painkiller would be Uber - they eliminated customer frustrations with taxis by making the experience much more simple and providing transparency for the fare.

One good technique for creating an idea for a painkiller business is to complain (internally) about your everyday experiences. Keep a notebook with you and start every page with "It really sucks when...". What you'll be doing is identifying pain points and they should come thick and fast. Next steps:

-Market validation: Does it suck for you and you alone or does it suck for many people?

-Existing solutions: Has someone fixed this already? If so, why haven't you heard about them until now (what sucks about their service or product)?

-Identify the EMOTIONAL driver: Use a technique called laddering to get back to the real reason why people experience pain and then structure your business to take a short cut to that rather than emulating current practices.

By the way, get in touch if you want to chat.

the best advice I've ever read....

Really interesting points, Robbie. Just staring at the wall and trying to come up with an idea is tough. You have a good point in regards to observing everyday inconveniences caused by improper product design or lack of appropriate tools. I should definitely keep journal of the experiences that can be improved.

Couldn't agree with this more. To add to what has been said, if it is a specific industry you want to target, you should work in that industry for a while. That way you can see what people in that industry have problems with, and will easier be able to come up with business ideas to address them.

For example: Working at a restaurant could teach you what is annoying about the food industry and give you ideas on how to solve those issues.

Another example:

Working in construction could give you business ideas that would make construction an easier less painful job to work.

I have found that from my own experience, the best way to learn about things to solve is to experience them firsthand.

John Wu
John Wu
Courses Plus Student 3,288 Points

Now I got a crazy idea. I am going to fire a search on Twitter for the work 'sucks' ... LOL

Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points

Hi there !

Im looking for my self how can I get started? im learning programming and I cant YET do a databse stuff.. back end.. and im not either good in the business itself .

But, the most important think is to have self discipline. If you want to make millions from an idea and change the word. You need to have self discipline. That means everything you do , will lead you forward. If you earn 2miillion pounds from an idea, and your business shut , you will have 2 millions . But you see , here you can go in 3 directions (1) You can have no self discipline and spend it all and be broke .
(2)You can just have it for whole life .
(3) You can invest it in your self and start doing new business that will soon be worth 5 millions. You achieve it by self discipline .

And idea don't come in a day. People look , I start by looking for my own need really . Reember that every skill is learnable . There are paths already made fomr others . There is a recipte for a success. Make a goal list. List 5-12 things you want in your life , hen put it in order form the first. It can be health, fit, financial successful, have 3 cars , good relation ship and so on..

Then you can search for a niche or like I said, look from your self. You can look whats missing on web or if theres an idea, you can leverage it . In fact, that what most self-millionares or billionares do .

You see thers a saying that poor get porrer and rich get richer. Once the rich get all the discipline to get million he will continure and get richer. That includes saving, or for every dollar he makes, 10% goes in savings, 10% goes to charity and 80% for himself to do whatever.

Remember also that you cant do it all. If you need to have a professional illustration or something , it would be the best to het with someone . Meaning that if your main purpose is coding, and you need desing, business , seo , marketing etc.. that's a lot to handle, and life is not enough long to learn everything . Unless you a healthy 100year old man that spend 20 years on each then maybe, but keeping up to date with everything its still hard , it takes a lot of time.

Also look how self-millionares are formed, I recommend Brian Tracy . If you look at Steve Jobs, he was in manufacture that he learned small details so that why the iphone is so simple in design, he has a close look on design etc.. you can research about him.

If you believe that you can do anything you want, you will. If you say you can't , then you can't . Be positive . Remember that every9o9ne starts in the same place.

That guy there was once a white belt karate, after 10years hes a black belt. Im a middle belt karate and it takes me 5 years. He was once where I was , in 5 more years ill be a black belt or sooner !

Exercise: Take a notebook paper, a small one and a pen and as you go along with your day, maybe write everything you like or could be improved .

Look on internet on things that can be better.

If your in and completely different field , e.g gardening , but you have no clue, but you have and awesome idea, go for it and make it happened! How will you feel that in short period of time someone made millions from it becaue he just made it happened.

You know what people say ? don't get stressed about business . Make it , put the ighest effort and just relise the net in the sea. If the net is good enough, it will get a lot of fish . If not , you get another net . And if you get something in , hurray! You did it !

Big thinkg , and nothing can stop you. Failiture is your friend, its good that you fail, if you don't fail, that means your not trying. And if there aren't any failitures , it means it just an task. Get over the obstacles and identidy the way to kill destroy them.

Im in the same process and im just about to write a post on TTH for any suggestion si could take to get mmore in the field. If you can program, then I believe you could make some money form it too and go to a company or agency . Infact! Go to a agency , or a company if you can , they will teach yo u.

If I would have a reqest from google, I would go there and learn form the best , then bring that knowledge to my business and whuala !

Hope this helps, a bit long uh .

Thanks Conrad and again thanks to everyone who replied. I need motivation to get started. As I get this "I need to know everything before I begin" thinking I get discouraged. I am learning step by step by focusing on my primarily focus of study. I just finished CSS and Javascript courses and I want to focus on those. I don't need to be a graphic designer when I can hire someone else.

Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points

Thats what i mean :)
I saw that this was 4 months ago : p did you find any tips ?

I would suggest that just like it takes practice to build development skills, it takes practice to build business skills. Take some courses, read some articles, try to think out different ideas, and I think you will find that you can start to grow your aptitude for business.

I was evolved in a group where we had to create a new business from the start and the best advice i can give you is just choose & go.

Make a list on 10 ideas that you think people might want and differentiate yourself from the competitors (How are you different than the next guy?) and from those just choose one and go.Make sure you have validated your idea and that people really want that(Lean Start-up is a good book for that).

Then build a website or a software that provides your service.You already know how to build a website from treehouse so that is checked and you dont need to outsource it.Everything else that you dont know just outsource from elance,freelance or fiverr.

At the end of the course we had people with different successful businesses like providing website services,animated videos,linked-in consultation and much more all because they just chose the idea that suited best for them and went with it.

So just choose & go and of course validate the idea,you dont want to but a lot of money and 6 months in to a business where at the end of it you discover that nobody wants it ,if you see that people want it make it happen.

Thanks Kevin. My mistake was thinking that I have to do everything on my own. I felt overwhelmed and discouraged because of that. I should definitely think of delegating/outsourcing some tasks.

Konrad Pilch
Konrad Pilch
2,435 Points

HI,

Any skill can be learned.

Best idea you say. Hmmm, if i think about million of ideas, i would choose one thath i would engioj more work with and the one i would like to spend time and think it will bring value to me and to others.

All these young millionaires 15years old, have one thing in common. Their parents. Yep. Parents play a MASSIVE ROLE in rasing the kid up! If the parents are very smart, they will raise the kid very good . I mean, kids thath know how to porgram in the age of 15 years old? or younger? Some, very slim, did camed up alone, but most of them, parents.

While they started it in early age, e.g 10, they can become wealthy by the age of 25. While if we start at 20 , we canbecome wealthy at age of 35. The average success rate is 30-40 years .

I believe, i can make it before im 26.

TIP: When something goes wrong in the business, and u cant do nothing, then save the energy and focus on the important stuff you can change . Dont cry over because someone suicided and stopped the trafic and u have ur products delayed, even if u get bad rating from the customer. You could do nothing. SO focus on important stuff because nothing will change anyways, unless u hire a helicopter... i doubt.

The best way, as we say, is to get hand dirty, by doing it. You can study other people too. I play a game , where i studied one champion, and i looked at other best players, and im now one of it. Maybe its not a massive achievemnt, as its a 'game', but i toughed me someting in real life.

I love thath treehouse has forum, you can most of the times 99% relay on it. If you can make a webiste, i believe, you can do anything you like .

Everything will take time. Success oernight is made by weeks, months, years of hard working. And then .......... BOOM! Success !

Till you have time left, you can achieve what you want. If you quit , you faild, even if u didnt do well, you still had time . If u persist, you will achieve it.

Its kinda easy to follow it all, but easy tasks , arent allways simple. If i give u a spoon to dig a hole 20ft down in very soft sand , it would be easy right? but it will take a lot of effort.

Even if i know maybe how to motivate my self and stuff, i have bad time management, Very very very very bad, probably the worst person with it. I mean, its 01:30 am now, i should go sleep at 22:00 (10:00pm).

Its not easy to do it, really, its very hard , even if its easy. Sleeping at 23o clock>? easy task, i still havent managed to do it.

A lot of people 'want' to be someone, but are they actually doing something?

U know, training martial arts with a guy thath said he wants to be like Bruce Lee, but then , when i ask him to do extra training, hes like no no no... he dont sacrifice . He dont go deeper.

I believe in people, that show effects, not tkat talk. I dont buy anyones stories . Unless i see thath their keeping up thier promesses, i can beleive in what they can achieve.

For some people will take longer than others to learn. Life.

I started after 1 year... it took me soo much ... and now im in the game.. almost... still..... annoying and frustrating : p while i take a lot of days off , and play games too.. but, i do work on it, and when i do, i finish it.

Sometimes i think its good to take a break, but not too often and not too long.

I think i went off topic into somehing else as well xdd

Thank you for taking your time to answer my question, Josiah.

I was thinking of forming a team with my friends, but they are not business minded.

Networking is a good advise. I guess the biggest problem for me is trust. I need to get to know them first.

Heidi Bada
Heidi Bada
14,197 Points

I have opposite problem where I have lots of ideas, and it takes time to narrow them down, and validate the most promising one at the time, while more ideas are generating in my head.

I too have family and friends who say they want to be their own boss, but aren't really entrepreneurial. I think I am, but haven't gathered a commercial following for any of my ideas...ever...in the past. So I keep my goals to myself now (after getting some compelling advice from TED talks) so that I can apply my own drive to make them happen. Treehouse has been a big confidence booster, and it seems to be working.

I'm working through the Start a Business track, to figure out a way to offer my web design services to the world properly this time, and achieve some specific tech income goals (which may evolve as I learn more).

Hello i am also want to be business and also have some good idea let me know your Facebook or email id so we can talk may be we can create something awesome thanks and happy new year :)