Choosing an idea. Step 1 – Do what you love
Jack and Debbie sit down over dinner one night to flesh out ideas. They spend hours deliberating and they start to get overwhelmed. By midnight, they have over 10 good ideas. How do they choose which idea is the best one? And how do they even start executing the idea after they decide?
Every business starts with an idea, but how do you know which ideas are worth it? Will your idea make you millions or will it bankrupt you? Will it stand out or will it fade into the background within months?
Here are some basics to choosing business ideas that will help you establish a better business, with a lesser likelihood of failure, right off the bat.
Do What You Love
“Do what you love and the money will follow” is a statement many are used to, and you might often see varying opinions on it. There are those who say doing what you love will guarantee you success, and those who say doing what you love will guarantee that you starve.
How can you spend your life doing what you love? Many people make decent money doing something that they don’t necessarily like doing, but it provides them with financial security and the time to do what they love doing on the side.
You could say the same thing about business ideas: “Sure, I love to weld, but my friend started selling organic tea and now he’s a millionaire. I don’t like tea, but there’s obviously a market for it. I want to be a millionaire.”
Or, “I love to write, but writers aren’t making much money. I kind of like cooking, I guess. I could open a restaurant.”
Doing what you love may sound cliché, but if you are going to start a business, and want to have creative control over the business, then you should probably love what you’re doing right down to the details.
Forget the idealized image of the finished product right now and focus on the very root of your company. If you can’t appreciate the very core of your creation, it probably won’t be very successful. For example, if your goal is to run the trendiest sushi restaurant in town, but you hate fish and you’re not comfortable with people, then you should probably rethink your idea.
Think of something you would enjoy developing because you always thought the world would be better with it. Think of something you never get bored of no matter how much you do it. Creating your business involves a lot of time and creative energy – and if you’re not feeling what you’re doing, you could lose interest halfway through the journey and it could easily spiral out of control – or into the hands of someone else.
Passion for your idea is, and always will be, of the utmost importance in your business – at all stages. Passion ensures hard work, commitment, and a good quality product.
Just don’t follow your passion so intensely that you lose sight of logic. If there’s no market for your idea there’s just no business potential – case closed.