Tuesday, October 12, 2010
Monday, October 11, 2010
Where Do Good Business Ideas Come From? *Podcast Script*
How did Jeff Bezos come up with Amazon? What made Joseph Pedott conceptualize the unconventional Chia Pet? Why did Art Beloff commit so much of his time and energy to creating the Bagel Wizard Safety Bagel Slicer?
Simply put, they were able to identify an opportunity that would make things better, easier, entertaining, or more affordable. Great business ideas come from a number of different places, but most often, they are derived from experience. After cutting numerous bagels, Art Bellof realized that cutting bagels precisely down the middle was a pain in the ass! Jeff Bezos thought that there HAD to be a way to aggregate buyers and sellers in order to open up the "marketplace", and he had a hunch that the internet was the medium to do this with.
Experiencing these problems made all of their brains fire in a way that uncovered their own, unique solutions to these problems. This epiphany alone, however, does not create a profitable business. The second part of this is understanding that there are enough people out there with similar or identical problems. These people make up the market, and this market needs to reach a critical mass in order for a venture to be profitable. If there were only 5 people that needed a bagel cutter, I am positive that Art Bellof would not have spent so much time on his damn Bagel Wizard Safety Bagel Slicer. The reality of it is that millions upon millions of people cut bagels every single day, and this is what made it worth Art's while to push this venture forward.
This experience-based idea creation process is extremely typical among entpreneurs; however, there are much less organic approaches to conceptualizing ventures. Specifically, I'm refering to the more practice of problem analysis. So, tune in next time to get a brief, yet thorough assessment of problem analysis, and how you can use this more abstract approach to come up with your million dollar idea.
Simply put, they were able to identify an opportunity that would make things better, easier, entertaining, or more affordable. Great business ideas come from a number of different places, but most often, they are derived from experience. After cutting numerous bagels, Art Bellof realized that cutting bagels precisely down the middle was a pain in the ass! Jeff Bezos thought that there HAD to be a way to aggregate buyers and sellers in order to open up the "marketplace", and he had a hunch that the internet was the medium to do this with.
Experiencing these problems made all of their brains fire in a way that uncovered their own, unique solutions to these problems. This epiphany alone, however, does not create a profitable business. The second part of this is understanding that there are enough people out there with similar or identical problems. These people make up the market, and this market needs to reach a critical mass in order for a venture to be profitable. If there were only 5 people that needed a bagel cutter, I am positive that Art Bellof would not have spent so much time on his damn Bagel Wizard Safety Bagel Slicer. The reality of it is that millions upon millions of people cut bagels every single day, and this is what made it worth Art's while to push this venture forward.
This experience-based idea creation process is extremely typical among entpreneurs; however, there are much less organic approaches to conceptualizing ventures. Specifically, I'm refering to the more practice of problem analysis. So, tune in next time to get a brief, yet thorough assessment of problem analysis, and how you can use this more abstract approach to come up with your million dollar idea.
Saturday, October 2, 2010
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