Starting Up An Online Business: Finding Business Ideas Most Suitable For You

Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 6:28 pm

Business Ideas From What You Like The Most

I know I promised to show you how to do online market research in my previous post. However, I feel it is important to get this out first. It is the very first step you should take when you are starting up an online business. Especially if you are still trying to find business ideas that is most suitable for you.

Online market research allows you to determine the exact market to start your business in. It is certainly important for small business startups which I posted about in On Line Market Research: The Importance Of Market Research To Small Businesses.

Seriously, before you even go into the research steps, you should at least have ideas of what business you are going into. Allow me now to show you how to find ideas for a suitable market to start your business in.

Have You An Idea For Your Online Business Yet?

The place to look for a business idea doesn’t even require the Internet or computers. Just take a look at your own self. What are your interests? Your hobbies for example. If you like to go fishing, then fishing is certainly a good market to go into.

Do you spend a lot of time playing games – video games, computer games, online games? That’s a whole range of markets you can venture in.

How about the job you’re doing? Lets say you are a teacher. You can surely enter the Teaching Market. Your personal experience in your job would certainly have prepared you to succeed in this market.

When you really think about it, just by looking at your own interests, personal experiences and knowledge you can find various profitable markets. So, if you don’t know what exactly you want to start your business in, do the following. Tonight before you go to bed, find a pen and paper. Sit down. Take a minute or two, at the most, to list down all your interests, hobbies, jobs you’ve done, the subject of books you like to read, the movies you like, etc.

Don’t think when doing this. Just write whatever that comes to mind. Following is what my list looks like: (This is directly off the top of my head right now)

x-men
wolverine
computer
soccer
college football
american football
miami hurricanes
miami dolphins
money
jason bourne
selangor football
tottenham hotspurs

Why Starting Up A Business With What You Like?

Why use your own self as the source of ideas? Ever of heard of the term “Making money with what you love”? This is how you do it. You surely like those items you’ve listed down. If you can make money out of them, why not? Believe me, with proper research (the next step)and the right actions, you can make money, lots of money, with that short list of things you like to do.

Another reason to go with what you like is the knowledge you already have about those particular markets. Lets take fishing again as an example. If you like fishing, you would certainly have a lot of knowledge about fishing. You would know about the best tools to use. You know of have heard about the best places to go fishing.

You can easily promote, say, the fishing rod you’ve used in your fishing trips. People will believe you since you’ll be promoting from your very own experiences. Tell people about that one fishing trip where you reeled in that 20 pound Swordfish using your favorite fishing rod.

Never caught a big fish? How about your fishing friends? They have their stories which you can share with others too.

By going into a business in a market you personally have experience in, you have an added advantage. You already know the market. You know the market lingo. You understand how the market thinks.

You are already in the market yourself. What you want is probably what the market also wants. You know the problems faced by the people in your market. Create a solution or find one from another company and provide them to the market.

I always hear from people who wants to start a business but don’t know in what market they want to start in. Instead of actually starting their business, many are simply wasting their time “Looking for that New Market”. They want to be in a business where they are the first to offer such product to market.

I’m not against such mentality. However, the truth is, when you are really just starting, it’s a whole lot easier to become successful in an existing market. When you have the hang of things, learnt about the challenges in running your own business, then you can think about venturing into the uncharted territories of creating “New Markets”.

You now know that it really is not difficult to find ideas for a business. All it takes is just a couple of minutes. You don’t want to take too long building that initial list. You might end up with a list too long and end up confused instead. That one minute list is basically the things you like the most. They are also the things which you really have vast knowledge in. Hence, they are the most suitable for you to begin your business in.

Oh yes, about the list you’ve created. Keep it in a safe place. You’ll look at it again and use it when we cover in detail about doing On Line Market Research. Remember, tonight, go create the list and discover the best business ideas that truly suits you.