Finding Your Successful Online Business Idea

 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:

  1. Is profitable (so you don’t waste your time) 
  2. 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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