Entrepreneurs are a diversified bunch. They appear in all sorts of sizes, temperaments, ages, and with various backgrounds.
Some produce tons of workable business ideas in a year. Others seem to struggle to come up with one good idea in a decade.
Regardless of where you fit on the continuum, there is a very underutilized place you can go to get all the good ideas you'll ever need to keep you in business for a long time to come.
Go online!
Sure there are lots of people surfing online looking for businesses they can operate. They hit the search engines in mass with terms like "make money online," "business opportunity," and "start a business."
The problem with this approach is obvious, I think.
The results that are returned include only other people's suggested or pre-packaged ideas and products.
Put another way, you get lots of business systems and products that others have developed and that you can sell - almost always with a hefty "buy-in" fee upfront.
No, when I suggest you go online looking for a business idea, I mean you search out people's problems, their feedback, their comments, their wishes and desires, their complaints, and their criticisms.
You go online to find the things people are talking about, looking especially for comments from frustrated or unsatisfied product users.
You will find these types of customer feedback mostly at interactive niche web sites, membership sites, niche forums, product review sites, and specialized portals.
The deeper down in a niche you go, the more valuable these comments become because they are very specific and super targeted.
Here are the types of comments you are looking for:
"Why doesn't somebody come up with a __________?"
"This would be a great _________, if only it had _________."
"I bought a __________ and was disappointed to find it didn't include __________."
"I would purchase this product, but it's not compatible with __________."
"I'm waiting to buy until this product includes __________."
"I love this product, but it is way too __________ (complicated, expensive, big, fragile, ugly, you name it . . .)
You see, these types of comments suggest that there are "ready, willing, and able" customers waiting, if the product is somehow changed or modified to better meet particular consumer wants.
There is not a better business idea, than one that comes with a pre-defined customer base of unhappy and waiting credit card holders!
If you're not the type that easily comes up with workable business ideas and plans, try spending some time online being very observant of the little clues that others are leaving about what they'd like to see in a product or service.
