If you Googled “business ideas” right now, you’d see thousands of ideas to choose from:
- Dog walking.
- Writing articles online.
- Social media consulting.
So that raises the question: If business ideas are so easy to come by,
why is finding the right one so hard?
Answer: Because you don’t just need any old idea. You need to know
if your idea:
- Is profitable (so you don’t waste your time)
- Is something you’re passionate about
Anybody can hand you a list of ideas and say, “Run with this. Bye.”
But our approach is decidedly different. We’ve developed a system
that guarantees you’ll find a profitable business idea doing what you
love.
I want to share that system with you today. And at the end of this
section, I’ll give you a checklist you can use to quickly tell which of
your business ideas are profitable.
Let’s get started.
Step 1: Start with business ideas that suck
Here’s the most liberating part of coming up with business ideas: You
have permission to suck.
There are no bad ideas, especially in the beginning.
Some of my early business ideas were terrible. And I’ve created more
than 19 successful products.
For example, a few years back, I was certain my readers wanted a
product on healthcare. After all, I’m an educated guy and I had trouble figuring out what health insurance to use!
We spent over $50,000 building a product, beta testing it with
students, even writing copy for a launch.
But after all that testing, we realized that nobody cared. We learned
that while people love to complain about healthcare, few want to do
anything about it.
This taught us a very expensive lesson: Test your idea BEFORE you
create a product, and you virtually guarantee it will be profitable.
Since then, we’ve developed a system to help you quickly identify
bad ideas so you can avoid some of the costly mistakes that we’ve
made.
It all starts with this simple realization: You have permission to come
up with ideas that suck.
Got it?
Once you’ve internalized this idea, you’re ready to move on to step
two.
Step 2: Ask yourself these 4 questions
It’s relatively easy to sit and come up with a list of random ideas. But
without the right framework, you can’t tell if these ideas will ever hold
any weight.
That’s why we use this simple exercise to get the ball rolling.
The first part of this exercise is to ask yourself 4 questions
Question #1: What do I already pay for?
I lead with this question because a lot of us can’t even fathom the
idea that someone would pay them for something.
But when you think about it, we already pay other people for tons of
random stuff.
For example, maybe you pay someone to:
• Clean your apartment
• Change the oil in your car
• Make your dinner
Question #2: What skills do I have?
What are you great at? Write those things down.
Remember, there are no bad ideas here. Your list of skills can include
anything you want.
• Are you good at cooking?
• Do you speak Spanish?
• Are you an Excel wiz?
As you make your list, you’ll start to see what people might pay
you for.
Question #3: What do my friends say I’m great at?
This is important to think about because it can be very revealing.
Maybe your friends are always saying, “Wow, you give amazing relationship advice. You’re the only person I come to.” Or, “Your
apartment is so organized. I wish my place looked like this.” Or, “OMG,
you’re always wearing the perfect outfit! I’m so jealous.”
You could turn all three of those things into successful businesses.
Question #4: What do I do on Saturday morning?
This last question comes from one of my good friends,
Said, “When you’re trying to find a business idea, think about what
you do on a Saturday morning before everyone else is awake.”
• What are you reading? Fashion magazines? Fitness books?
• What are you watching?
• What one thing could you do all day?
Another way to think of this is: If you were locked in a room with your
friend, what could you talk about for 3 hours straight?
This is a great way to expose the ideas and passions. The things you
would have a blast sharing with the world.
Step 3: Use the Demand Matrix to guarantee people will pay you
A lot of people will just leave you there and say, “Make a list. Have
fun!”
But I want to take it one step further. In our courses, we always test
our ideas for profitability.
That way we can virtually guarantee they’ll be successful.
And for that, I want to show you a tool we use called the “Demand
Matrix.” Here’s what it looks like:
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