All the attention that generating new business ideas gets in the media and online gives the wrong impression. It’s hardly ever mentioned that original ideas often don’t pay. Why is this? It’s because new business ideas are expensive to develop, take long to implement are hard to markets and require starting a new business.
What then is the alternative?
Let’s begin by looking at how you can take existing products and services and by approaching them in a playful way, come up with something that is better. But before I give you some examples just remember that an important criteria for coming up with new ideas is to see where potential customers have pain. Pain is a good indicator that if you come up with a solution to relieve the pain, it could be a profitable product or service. Ask yourself, where is the most pain in my intended marketplace? Also look at your own personal life and jot down your pain points. Are there any opportunities? Could you come up with something better than is already available on the market to reduce pain?
One of the games you can play is SCAMPER. Take an existing product or service and play a game thinking about how you can substitute, combine, adapt, magnify/modify, put to other uses, eliminate, and rearrange/reverse. I recently came across a brand of coffee that has come up with new packaging that not only looks attractive but also keeps the ground coffee fresh. All that happened here was for someone to ask: How can I modify or change ground coffee packaging in some way or another?
You may also want to play the “What-if?” Game. Again, take an existing product or service and ask yourself “what-if” I were to change the colour, material, size, shape, ingredients, packaging and even distribution of this product or service? Be playful. Some of your best ideas might come about when you are in a relaxed mood and your mind just wonders. An example I came across was where someone came up with a new background for a small basketball game. When this idea was licensed it produced thousands of dollars of income for the originator.
You could develop the new idea from an existing product or service yourself or you could license your idea. Licensing frees you from development costs, marketing and forming and running a small business.
If you are interested in coming up with new business ideas and looking at the different ways to develop and commercialise them, contact me on Twitter @CHESBRAD for more information.
