Red monkey tales – silly ideas might just work

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Red faced monkeys enjoy living in the trees high above the Amazon jungle, searching for fruits and berries. They also come down from the tree tops to forage for insects and Brazilian nuts. Most of them shy away from other animals and especially people but one red monkey, sharper than the rest, sails down from the tree rooftops and occasionally gives out advice that may surprise you.

“Hey, Red Monkey what do you have to say for yourself today?”

“You called me down from where I was hanging in a tree so it must be important because you know I don’t like being disturbed.”

“I’ve been thinking,how do you get people to understand about how important it is to come up with ideas for new small business opportunities.”

“You called me down from my favourite place in the trees to talk about this. Haven’t you got anything better to do?”

“But you know how it is. People aren’t like you Read Monkey. They don’t enjoy the kind of freedom you have. They have to earn money in the human jungle otherwise they won’t survive and thrive.”

“Why don’t you talk about what you saw today when you were out shopping at the butcher today?”

“What you mean?”

“Tell them about those three young school girls finishing Matric and what they were doing.”

“What’s there to say?”

“If young people like that can come up with an idea to make money, why can’t adults?”

“Yes, what those young Matriculants school girls were doing all started with an idea. The three of them want to go to the coast for holiday when they finish their Matric this year and so they decided to dress up in Hawaiian beach gear, bak shortbread biscuits and were going around with a tin asking Saturday morning shoppers to donate towards their end-of-school holidays.”

“That’s what I mean. I don’t understand you humans. You make things so complicated. That’s all it takes. It all starts with an idea. But you’ve got to give something of value in exchange. Look at those young schoolgirls, they knew if they just went around empty handed they may have got a few donations but not much. So they decided to bak shortbread cookies themselves and let people on the streets decide how much they would exchange for each biscuit.”

“But these are young schoolgirls. Small business is different, isn’t it?”

“Do you really believe that? I might be a monkey but I’m not that stupid. Take that guy you know, John, How did he start his business which is doing so well now?”

“I suppose you’re right, Red Monkey. His idea was to start a new kind of restaurant where he could give customers better value than they were getting from the big chain restaurants. He started out small to test these idea and it took off.”

“Talking about food is making me hungry. I’ve got to go. I know of a tree where the berries have just started ripening and I want to scuttle off now before the other monkeys find them.”

“Well, Red Monkey, you never cease to amaze me. Go feast on your berries and come back soon because we’ve still got a lot to talk about.”

“It’s all just monkey business if you don’t do something about what you talked about today. If you want things to happen for you, you’ve got to be like those young girls and get into action, making and testing your product. It’s only monkeys like me that can monkey around. You humans have to work so you better find things that you enjoy doing.”

The “Red Monkey Tales” is a occasional light-hearted small business series which stimulates ideas and new thinking by monkeying around.

How playing games can produce new business ideas

COPYRIGHT CHESNEY BRADSHAW

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?

Continue reading “How playing games can produce new business ideas”

Is this one thing holding you back from success?

Artist – Rayne Bradshaw

Let’s get down to basics. If you haven’t been able to start something of your own, create your own asset for for generating income, then you most likely haven’t conquered the one thing that stands in your way: fear of failure.

Felix Dennis, one of Britain’s wealthiest self-made entrepreneurs, said: “After a lifetime of making money and observing better men and women than I fall by the wayside, I am convinced that fear of failing in the eyes of the world is the single biggest impediment to amassing wealth.” Continue reading “Is this one thing holding you back from success?”

The number 1 way to find new business ideas

On Saturday afternoon in Brooklyn, Pretoria, visiting a seafood restaurant that provides wonderful service and food to customers — dare I say far better than similar coastal establishments.

Don’t just come up with an idea that you think is a promising business opportunity; look for a problem that needs solving and set to work solving it

It is easier to look for a solution to a problem for a source of a new business idea than it is to set wracking your brain and forcing artificial ideas. You are likely to be more successful with your start-up if the idea is based in a rock-solid problem that someone or yourself is experiencing.

Let me demonstrate this to you. Continue reading “The number 1 way to find new business ideas”

Can you make it second time around?

Photo credit: Chesney Bradshaw. Copyright 2017

A few weeks ago I met a small business person who I haven’t seen for some time. He was successful at one time in the financial services sector but through personal circumstances he eventually overextended himself and lost almost everything.

It’s hard to pull yourself back from financial disaster. Second acts are not easy. After you have got a real good hiding out there in the marketplace, a bloody face and a dried out bank balance, it takes special character to pick yourself up and start anew. Some people may simply give up. Others may even take drastic measures such as turning on themselves – one small publisher I knew got into deep financial trouble and turned a gun on himself. An even smaller group of people will decide to try again and give it their best. Continue reading “Can you make it second time around?”

Passion is not enough – compact guide in business and entrepreneurship for college and university students

January 2017. Copyright Chesney Bradshaw
January 2017. Copyright Chesney Bradshaw

If you want to form and run your own start-up business, you won’t find it landing up on your doorstep ready to turn the switch. It will take acquiring new knowledge, experience and time and effort. If you’ve never started or run a small business before, there is no other way but to put in the hours.

Where do you start? It all begins with a seed of an idea. Some instant experts claim that an idea is 1% of what it takes to start a new product or service and the other 99% is execution. It’s probably 20% idea and 80% execution. Why do I say this? It’s because you’re unlikely to come up with one promising idea and use it straight off the bat. If you have a look at my book “Breakthrough Ideas”, you’ll see that you need to generate or find several ideas before you come up with something that matches your potential market, your passion and your own skills and knowledge. Continue reading “Passion is not enough – compact guide in business and entrepreneurship for college and university students”

A new business idea needs this one quality to really succeed

(Copyright © 2016 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)
(Copyright © 2016 by Chesney Bradshaw, all rights reserved)

A surfer from the Eastern Cape took his son to the beach. While they were there, his son was stung by a bluebottle or Portuguese man o war. The surfer began investigating what could work to relieve his skin because vinegar certainly didn’t. He discovered that papaya or pawpaw has a substance that works to relieve bluebottle stings. He developed this idea and now has a product that relieves a range of stings. Continue reading “A new business idea needs this one quality to really succeed”

Is there an opportunity in your domain expertise?

Street Art, Buenos Aires
Street Art, Buenos Aires (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A young graffiti artist spent a lot of time after he matriculated skateboarding and doing graffiti after hours in the dark. This was his passion and he enjoyed it thoroughly. It wasn’t too long before he went to America and learnt from some top graffiti artists there but also learnt about specialised spray-painting methods. He’s come back and now is running his small business doing a new kind of graphic design that sets himself apart from all the graphic designers that are churned out from high-charging colleges.

A young woman, a successful model, in Srilanka started selling personal care products and later garments from a factory because her father had encouraged her to become a business person. One day while she was selling garments from the back of her blue station wagon she came up with an idea to come up with her garment range. Several years later her fashion house is one of the top such companies in Srilanka and is listed on the stock exchange. Continue reading “Is there an opportunity in your domain expertise?”

Does your business model require a makeover?

Photo Credit: Wikicommons
Photo Credit: Wikicommons

On a Friday evening in December we went to listen to an opera at the Roodepoort, Theatre. The main draw card was South Africa’s top tenor Stephan Louw. If you’re not interested in opera don’t worry because the fascinating part of this opera was the business model.

Opera audiences in South Africa aren’t big and running an opera in a small theatre such as the Roodepoort Theatre was probably the right size venue because even though we were to watch and listen to a top tenor, the theatre was about half full. Continue reading “Does your business model require a makeover?”

Where do you look for your new business idea that you can turn into gold?

English: , Hungarian fashion model
Hungarian fashion model (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

A fashion model in Sri Lanka came up with an idea for a new business when she was selling hair care products to salons and garments from the boot of her blue station wagon. Although she was a successful model her father wanted her to do something in business. Her idea was to come up with a fashionable brand that could cater for both local and international visitors. Now her fashion house is one of the largest and the only publicly listed such company in Sri Lanka.

It all started with a promising new business idea. Some business advisers like owngrading the value of an idea mainly because they are interested in selling their business training and consulting time. But the creativity, the most valuable part, the core element is the idea that comes at the right time. As the fashion house owner who built a business from scratch says, an entrepreneur finds a gap in the market even in a sector that is highly saturated and does something which may never have been seen or done before, or does something differently – something that is correct for that time and for the future. Continue reading “Where do you look for your new business idea that you can turn into gold?”