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Small business idea
Developing an idea into a business

To come up with an idea for anything you brainstorm. But how do you brainstorm a small business idea? By thinking big. Think about the big trends in business, entertainment, fashion, health care or other trends and work backwards. Then think about what you really like to do. Guess what? It doesn't necessarily have to do with the best business idea you come up with. You may really like the operations side of business. You can do that with any business. If you're not familiar with the business you've selected as your best idea, just make sure you do some solid research before you get started.

Let's start with an example small business idea brain storm.
Who has money? What are they spending it on?
Retiring and soon to retire baby boomers. We hear this all the time. This is the big emerging market. And most people would tell you health care would be a great business to enter. So let's scratch that idea because competition will be high. What else? Retirees like to take vacations, The kids are grown and gone, they have free time, and they have more disposable income. But there are already thousands of travel agencies. How many travel agencies target senior citizens? In a rapidly expanding market segment you have more flexibility because you can specialize. Where do senior citizens like to go? Florida, Hawaii, Arizona, somewhere that is warm. Idea one is to start a travel agency specializing in vacations for senior citizens to warm destinations.

What have we accomplished?
We've taken a stable business model and customized it for a specific target audience. The fact that this target audience is the biggest market doesn't matter. They feel special. We've also targeted specific locations, warm areas. Almost everyone who takes a vacation goes somewhere it's warm. So we really haven't even had to do anything special other than slant our marketing effort. But if you were sixty-five years old and looking to take that first nice long vacation after retirement and were looking for travel agents who would you chose? Why you'd chose the company that looked like it was designed just for you! This is an example of taking an existing business and creating a new business based soley on the intended market. Here's a secret, everyone falls for this. Everyone likes to be treated like they're special.

A high tech small business idea
Again we start by looking at trends. Right now video is the hottest thing on the internet. But we don't have access to millions of dollars so we need a small business idea that reaches millions of potential customers, on a budget. What we have is time. How do we make money on the internet video craze? We can't create videos, we can't host a video server because that's expensive. What problems exist now that we can create a solution for? If you got to google video or youtube and start looking around you'll see their are thousands of different types of videos. If you look for a specific kind of video you'll also notice it's difficult to find quality videos on your subject. So what's the business idea? Create a website with a list of (and links to) really good videos related to a specific subject. It could be anything from how to paint, how to fix a car, or funny videos of kids. You spend your time looking at videos that fit your segment and rank them. Then you create sub categories to increase the size of your website. In not time at all you'll have thousands of people coming to your site to potentially look at thousands of pages of videos. On each page you can place an advertisement that fits with your target audience.

Now let's review these two ideas and look at how we arrived at them.
We need to research market trends, or we need to research demographic trends. What is the age group that this business will target, is there a geographical component. Either one will work, as we only really need one good business market segment.. Then we define areas that interest us, or areas where we may have a certain level of expertise within these markets, or population groups. The ideas we've put at the top of our list are probably things we already have an interest in.

Now we start to look at how these products or services are purchased, or in the case of demographics, what this group of people is buying, how are they buying it, (Web, small store front, both), and how much are they paying?

Once we've defined a customer base and a product we need to determine through research where the gaps are. Is it in finding the right product? Or perhaps it's in the delivery of the product? Or is it a location problem? The product is available and sells well, it's just not available everywhere.

Go through the process as many times as necessary to come up with at least ten good business ideas.

Now you can begin the process of selecting the business idea that fits your needs. Start with the money because that's the most important. Passion for the idea, knowledge of the segment and everything else are important as well. But money makes the decision.

What is our plan to succeed with our small business idea?
Not the formal business plan, just a rough draft plan that makes sense to us. How will we market and sell our business? How will we obtain the products and materials we need. And one very important question, who will run the business? That's not always a clear cut answer. Many small businesses stay small because the driver of the business is also the operations manager. This is going to decrease the amount of time available to grow the business. You should have a good idea of how the business will flow from sales, product or service acquisition, to delivery and include all of the operational tidbits around the flow chart.

Owning a small business is the dream of many. Making that dream a reality requires hard work, diligent research, the ability to sell, and thinking big. The good news is anyone can do it. There are literally millions of resources available to assist you. Everything from small service companies that assist businesses, to web pages filled with information, and case studies that either worked, or didn't. The most important thing is to think and act in a bigger scale than you believe is necessary. Over achieving is much more fun and rewarding than missing your target.

So what's stopping you? I'll bet you it's money. You have no idea how you'll pay for this small business, or how you'll feed yourself and your family while it's growing. Small business financing is a frightening process, but it shouldn't bet. Put your business plan on paper and walk in to a couple of banks. You'll be amazed at how willing they are to help. They're in the business of lending money, that's how they make money. It may take a few trips and quite a few forms will need to be filled out, but you'll probably eventually get the money you need.

Step by step guide to creating a business plan.

Small business idea Developing an idea into a business

Small business idea
Developing an idea into a business