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Figuring Out Your Business Idea
For some people, coming up with ideas is as easy as spotting chewing gum on the
sidewalk. New idea generation isn’t just easy, it’s something they do all the time and
often without trying. And for some, this isn’t an innate ability, but rather a “skill” learned
and practiced over the entire course of a lifetime.
For others, it’s nearly impossible.
While this “learning” may primarily be subconscious for some as others struggle to
come up with any ideas. Research on subjects of creativity and innovation certainly
helps too.
Anyone who puts in enough practice and who makes a conscious effort to notice
problems and identify needs, can improve their ability to come up with new ideas.
A brief bit of science before we dive into how to come up with ideas:
Good ideas are networks
If you’ve taken even the most rudimentary psychology course before, you will know that
the brain is largely composed of a cell we refer to as “the neuron.” In a human brain,
there are approximately 100 billion of these cells. Connected together, they form a
nervous system that is capable of making decisions, sensing surroundings, and issuing
commands to our body.
How we think, what we think, and what we’re capable of, are largely a consequence of
the connections these neurons have made with one another.
In fact, something particularly interesting about the human brain is its ability to rewire
these connections and to make new connections, regardless of age. Neuroscientists
refer to this property as “plasticity.” And, the more experiences we have and the more
changes in behavior or environment that we experience, the more plastic the brain
becomes, or, the more capable of making new connections and rewiring old
connections.
This is why, in our older years, when most of us do less and use our brains less, we
have a harder time remembering information and controlling bodily actions. Our brain
has not stopped being plastic but has simply fallen out of the habit of making new
connections.
A similar difference exists for those in the habit of generating new ideas and those who
aren’t. The more practice you get doing it, the better your brain will become at creating
new connections. Simply put, the more active you keep your brain, the easier you will
find it to come up with new ideas and good ideas!
The perfect state of mind for idea creation
You are more likely to develop great ideas when:
• You explore and experiment in different areas
• You are a part of a “liquid” network
• You allow your idea to develop slowly, over time
• You are exploring and open to the idea of serendipitous connections
• You make mistakes
• You look for new uses for old inventions
• You build on platforms that have come before
Environments you spend time in contribute to or detract from your ability to ideate.
In order to create new connections, you need to place yourself in environments that
actually mimic the neural networks of a mind exploring the boundaries of the adjacent
possible.
When humans first organized themselves into dense settlements, innovation soared.
With the invention of agriculture, for the first time, humans began forming settled groups
that numbered in the thousands. This meant that more connections with more people
were possible and that a good idea could quickly spill over and take root in others’
minds.
If you keep this in mind as you work, live, and experiment, you’ll quickly realize that it’s
a lot easier to come up with new ideas, when you’ve got an influx of ideas coming your
way in the first place. This doesn’t have to happen in a city or a university or an
environment full of people, it can just as easily happen, if you’re interacting with ideas
from many people online, in books and across other modes of communication. The key
is “connectedness.”
1. Solve problems
The easiest way to come up with business ideas is to solve problems you have. The
second easiest is to solve problems others have. These don’t have to be big solutions
like Google search or Amazon, they could be much smaller.
Many of the products you have become used to using were actually invented to solve a
problem, including Thermo-flasks to keep coffee/food warm, sunglasses to protect from
the glare, security alarms to alert you that someone has broken in, fire hydrants to put
out a fire before the whole place goes up, toothbrushes to keep your teeth clean, and
dental floss to fish out unwanted food. The list is literally endless.
All you have to do is get good at identifying problems. Once you’ve realized that each of
your own frustrations is actually an idea in the making, you’re actually going to start
having fun!
You might consider a frustration of yours that you’d wish there was a product for
something you probably think is too obvious—a jewelry stand. Because you have so
much jewelry, You have to stick thumb tacks in the wall to hold it all up. There is no
stand you have seen on the market to solve this problem—only small stands for a time
long past when people bought fewer but more expensive items. Today, Iyou might
describe fashion as “disposable.” You buy something, you wear it a few times and set it
aside, partly because things like costume jewelry have become so cheap.
Ever heard of GoPro? They’re a camera company that got started in 2002. Founder
Nick Woodman had recently been on a surfing trip to Indonesia. Nick was unable to find
amateur photographers who could get close enough to get good action-shot pictures of
him surfing, or who could obtain quality equipment at an affordable price.
The solution to the problem? The GoPro camera—a wide-angle lens HD camera
capable of taking excellent video and good action shots, and which could go where
other affordable cameras couldn’t. Snap one into a case and you can literally do
anything with it, from scuba diving and extreme mountain biking to flying (and crashing)
a model airplane.
As you go about your daily tasks, be they at home or work, try to get in the mindset of
noticing the things that frustrate you. If you’ve been in a particular industry for a while,
you may have good insight into this as there may be things that have been a problem
for a long time. This is why venture capitalists like Boris Wertz see value in investing in
those that have a lot of experience in the market they’re pitching their idea for. He calls
it “the secret of the market.” It’s this secret or those problems that you have to identify.
Let’s say, you’re sitting at work, sitting at your desk—because that’s the only place you
have two monitors—that irks you. A lot of the time, you need to leave your desk to do
writing in a quieter area. But, without a second screen, writing and research don’t go
hand in hand. You like to have your research up on the one screen and do your writing
on the other. Moving away from your desk is always a sacrifice. The solution to this
problem would of course be a laptop with two screens.
Even if you work for someone else, try to get into the habit of finding the pain points.
Once you get into the habit of finding problems, you’ll probably start to enjoy it.
Remember, every problem is an opportunity for a new product, service, or company,
especially if it’s a problem many others have too.
2. Solve things that may become problems
Solving problems that you currently have is not the only way to come up with new ideas.
Why not think of solving problems that will exist, but don’t yet?
In this very futuristic sense, no one stands out quite so well here as Elon Musk. The
ventures he undertakes, including Solar City and Tesla Motors, may make some scoff,
but lack of fossil fuels will become a problem in the near future and Elon is taking steps
to fix that before it happens. This gives him the time to innovate as he’s first in and it
gives him market share. Good luck to others catching up!
If you think there’s not yet a market for your idea, you may just be able to create one by
appealing to those that, like you, believe it will be a problem in the future.
At present, there are numerous potential problems with obvious solutions, including
desalination plants for California, a state that is quickly drying up and running out of
water, preventative medication for diseases that could become problems (like Ebola),
makeup and accessories to protect privacy when face recognition software really takes
off, and breeding programs/nature reserves for animals that without help, will become
extinct.
3. Adapt to evolving needs
Physiological needs stay the same—the need for food, shelter, and water. Emotional
needs tend to stand the same—envy, greed, pride, etc. What doesn’t stay the same are
the products and services it takes to fulfill these needs.
The easiest products to market are also products that fulfill a real or contemporary
need.
An example of a service that has quickly become popular is “cloud storage.” It’s a result
of our very contemporary need to have access to our data, information, photos, music,
and so on, no matter what device we’re on. Google sells cloud storage, as does
Dropbox, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and a host of private companies that do as well.
4. Save people money
Yet another great way to come up with ideas is to think about saving people money.
You may buy 23 watt energy-saving light bulbs because they’re affordable, not because
they last for years and are actually the equivalent of a 100 watt light bulb, though that’s
an obvious bonus too.
You might fill up your car with ARCO gas because it’s cheaper than Chevron and Shell,
even though they’re owned by BP who was responsible for the horrible Gulf spill.
Some may prefer real-life bookstores not to vanish as a consequence of sites like
Amazon, they still end up buying books on Amazon because it saves them a lot of
money.
The truth is, unless you’re earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, pounds, or euros,
it’s still a luxury to be able to make more “moral decisions” to buy from and support
better companies and people.
This is why, if you can figure out how to save people money, you’ll have a good
business idea, new or not.
5. Make people’s lives easier
A coffee machine with a timer that ensures there’s hot coffee when you wake; a central
vacuum cleaning system that means only carrying a hose and brush around the house
rather than the full unit; a smart thermostat like Nest that can figure out how to save you
energy; shopping baskets placed at convenient intervals in the store in case you decide
you want to purchase more than what your arms can hold—the list goes on and on.
Remember, coming up with business ideas doesn’t mean you have to focus on
inventing new products or services. In fact, you could just as easily adapt an existing
service or introduce a new benefit that makes peoples’ lives easier.
Kohls is one company that is attracting return customers time and time again because
they’ve got a lifetime return policy. Even if you’ve lost your box and your receipt they will
take back a product and replace or refund it—your choice. Not only does this make you
feel good about the company, but it keeps you coming back, despite the fact that their
prices have obviously been marked up to account for this benefit. In short, it makes your
life easy.
There are always small ways you could be making things easier for yourself or for
others. In fact, if you think about doing this, on an ongoing basis, you may find you’re
also able to release new products that are simply a version of the old product that
makes someone’s life easier in some small way. The Waze Mobile App is a step up on
GPS predecessors that did not include live traffic updates. This small addition makes
the product so much more useful and helpful.
Can you think of something—an action, product, service, or chore that could be adapted
to make your life easier?
A pair of Salamon trail running shoes do exactly this. Instead of normal laces, they have
pull laces, which means they don’t come undone when running. They may not fit as
well as others do, but they mean less stopping.
Start looking at the things around you and asking, how could this be easier? How could
it be more intuitive, less stressful, and in general more pleasant to use? You may find
that even the tiniest change will create something incredibly popular.
6. Make chores or things that feel like tasks less unpleasant
In the online world, marketers and developers often look to “gamifying” software in order
to make using it feel less onerous. That is, they come up with small ways to reward you
for taking an action. For example, The Strava app tracks distance and average speed
as you go running. Each time you beat a previous record, Strava gives you a trophy or
some other small acknowledgment that makes you feel that you’ve achieved something.
Occasionally, this will push you to go a little bit further once you’ve got into the habit of
receiving trophy icons - it’s very difficult to do a run and not get one! The point is, it
makes your run a little more fun.
How about the app Run an Empire? This app promises to make running even more fun
(or less painful) than even the likes of Strava. It allows you, the runner, to capture
territories. You’ll have to watch the full video if you want to understand how it works, but
it’s clever. It stands to make the exhausting task of running feel like a game.
And then there’s the possibility of making real chores—like going to the toilet—fun. Ever
heard about Japan’s high-tech toilets? Well, they play music, have heated seats, blast
warm air, and clean with jets of water. We haven’t taken it to that extreme here yet but
that’s a great example of how to make an unpleasant task pleasant. Or so you can
imagine.
What do you hate doing? How could you make it more enjoyable? Maybe, you need
someone to make hanging your clothes less of a pain, to make drinking water feel less
like a “to do,” and to take all my bills and pay them for me.
7. Turn a hobby or something you’re passionate about into a business
For those of you already actively making or doing something, this may be an obvious
next step. Or, if you’ve been doing something on a regular basis and find yourself good
at it but don’t think of it as a hobby, perhaps you should think about how it could be a
business.
Things that you do on a regular basis that could potentially be turned into business
ideas such as glass painting, writing, researching, jewelry making, fixing jewelry,
illuminated lettering, social media training, and so on. Everyone has things they do on a
regular or semi-regular basis. If you’re good at any of these things and are looking for
business ideas, you just might want to think about turning your hobby into a business.
If you find the idea of starting a business intimidating, start with something you know.
This way, it might not feel like a business and you’ll enjoy the process as you go. Be
sure to think carefully about how you’ll feel if things do work out. You may find things
suddenly become less enjoyable as you’ve got to start making them to meet customer
demands or to pay the bills. Or, you might just need a new hobby!
8. Fulfill a need
Take any of the human needs on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and think of the
products and services created to meet these needs. Then, build on those.
Consider: As humans, we have a constant need to hydrate ourselves. If we did not drink
water, we’d die. As such, we’ve had plumbing built into our houses and into all of the
buildings we work in and visit. But, despite being able to pop in almost anywhere to
drink water for free, companies have come up with additional ways to meet this need.
They’ve provided solutions for water on the go. They’ve provided solutions for clean
water on the go. They’ve provided solutions for flavored water on the go, for “vitamin”
water, for water in bottles that won’t increase your risk of developing cancer.
Move up to the love/belonging level on Maslow’s pyramid, and you get companies like
Facebook that allow a user to feel a sense of connection to friends and family.
Move up another level to esteem and you get the likes of Tony Robbins with books and
tapes on how to achieve your dreams, improve your self-confidence, and become the
best.
It might feel a little manipulative looking at things this way, but many of the products you
use already bear reference to these needs, including the toilet paper you buy
(physiological), the locks you have on your door and the pepper spray you carry
(safety), the birthday card you buy for your friend (love/belonging), the feedback you
seek via recommendations on LinkedIn (esteem) and the tools and situations (like the
Peace Corps) that allow you to practice your creativity, morality, or problem solving
skills (self-actualization).
9. Appeal to a base emotion
What makes you angry, what makes you happy, what makes you jealous? What does
this to others? There’s a new social media site on the block that has capitalized on
anger. It’s called Ello and even though it’s still only invite by request, already it’s got a
lot of press, mainly because its appealed to those people that hate Facebook for
essentially being a gigantic ad platform that sells their personal details on to other
companies looking to make money.
Author and renowned copywriter, Andy Maslen, phrases appealing to base emotions a
little differently. He says, exploit a base emotion!
Think of it as you will, positive or negative, but fundamentally, Andy is right. According
to him, humans often make decisions based on one of seven emotions. These emotions
are more popularly known as the seven deadly sins:
• Pride
• Envy
• Lust
• Greed
• Gluttony
• Sloth
• Anger (wrath)
When you consider some of the services and products available to us today, you’ll
quickly realize how many of them were invented to appeal to or take advantage of these
emotions. Take beauty salons as an obvious example. How many people really need
their nails buffed or their legs waxed to survive?
The fact is, that as a society, we have taken evolutionary reactions a step further.
Where cleaning hair may previously have been an action we took in order to attract a
mate and look better than the competition, today we’ve taken it to the extreme.
Now, rather than simply having products that get the job done, we have products that
build on and create new needs like salt spray to add volume to hair, hair spray to hold a
style, dry shampoo for when you don’t have time to shower. Companies are able to sell
these products because they’re still able to exploit our base needs.
For people with fine hair, salt spray and volumizing shampoo is an easy sell. Oil, not so
much, however for others that have thick, bushy hair, oils could be an easy sell. All of
this is exploiting our pride. After all, none of these products are really necessary.
Take a look at those seven deadly sins and see if you can think of how products and
services you use on a regular basis are exploiting those needs. Perhaps you’ll even
start picking up on how advertisers do the same!
10. Experience more
It’s true that the more you do and the more you experience, the more material you will
have at your disposal to be able to create new ideas, or stitch together seemingly
disparate ideas.
In fact, Bill Gates believes so strongly in the power of serendipity in order to come up
with new ideas, that he frequently allots time to read books on a number of different
subjects in a short amount of time.
Nirmalya Kumar, Professor of Marketing at the London Business School, knows how
important it is to be curious and to look outside of your your own business or industry in
order to come up with new ideas.
In a video interview, he says that if he did not read broadly and then try to find
connections, he would always feel he was going to write or say the same thing as
everyone else. Primarily reading outside of business helps him come up with new ideas
and draw new correlations between topics.
According to Nirmalya, “Intelligence and raw knowledge are overrated. It’s more
important to have diverse interests.”
11. Get ideas from others
There is no shame in this. In fact most good ideas are built upon someone else’s idea.
Take J. K. Rowling and “Harry Potter.” Don’t you think the Death Eaters were modeled
off the Ku Klux Klan, and that the spiders in the Forbidden Forest bared reference to
Lord of the Rings, or that J. K. Rowling used myths as a basis from which to create the
strange and fascinating creatures in her books. In fact, even the original and entirely
fictional game of Quidditch has its origins in the idea that witches ride broomsticks. She
simply built on this idea.
How about the popular holiday destination in South Africa - Palace of the Lost City. It’s a
gigantic resort modeled off the ruins of a real lost city. Like something you might
stumble across in Cambodia, perhaps? There was probably a little bit of creative theft
here.
“Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.”
- Albert Einstein

Shift Reports

  • 1.
    Figuring Out YourBusiness Idea For some people, coming up with ideas is as easy as spotting chewing gum on the sidewalk. New idea generation isn’t just easy, it’s something they do all the time and often without trying. And for some, this isn’t an innate ability, but rather a “skill” learned and practiced over the entire course of a lifetime. For others, it’s nearly impossible. While this “learning” may primarily be subconscious for some as others struggle to come up with any ideas. Research on subjects of creativity and innovation certainly helps too. Anyone who puts in enough practice and who makes a conscious effort to notice problems and identify needs, can improve their ability to come up with new ideas. A brief bit of science before we dive into how to come up with ideas: Good ideas are networks
  • 2.
    If you’ve takeneven the most rudimentary psychology course before, you will know that the brain is largely composed of a cell we refer to as “the neuron.” In a human brain, there are approximately 100 billion of these cells. Connected together, they form a nervous system that is capable of making decisions, sensing surroundings, and issuing commands to our body. How we think, what we think, and what we’re capable of, are largely a consequence of the connections these neurons have made with one another. In fact, something particularly interesting about the human brain is its ability to rewire these connections and to make new connections, regardless of age. Neuroscientists refer to this property as “plasticity.” And, the more experiences we have and the more changes in behavior or environment that we experience, the more plastic the brain becomes, or, the more capable of making new connections and rewiring old connections. This is why, in our older years, when most of us do less and use our brains less, we have a harder time remembering information and controlling bodily actions. Our brain has not stopped being plastic but has simply fallen out of the habit of making new connections. A similar difference exists for those in the habit of generating new ideas and those who aren’t. The more practice you get doing it, the better your brain will become at creating new connections. Simply put, the more active you keep your brain, the easier you will find it to come up with new ideas and good ideas!
  • 3.
    The perfect stateof mind for idea creation You are more likely to develop great ideas when: • You explore and experiment in different areas • You are a part of a “liquid” network • You allow your idea to develop slowly, over time • You are exploring and open to the idea of serendipitous connections • You make mistakes • You look for new uses for old inventions • You build on platforms that have come before Environments you spend time in contribute to or detract from your ability to ideate. In order to create new connections, you need to place yourself in environments that actually mimic the neural networks of a mind exploring the boundaries of the adjacent possible. When humans first organized themselves into dense settlements, innovation soared. With the invention of agriculture, for the first time, humans began forming settled groups that numbered in the thousands. This meant that more connections with more people
  • 4.
    were possible andthat a good idea could quickly spill over and take root in others’ minds. If you keep this in mind as you work, live, and experiment, you’ll quickly realize that it’s a lot easier to come up with new ideas, when you’ve got an influx of ideas coming your way in the first place. This doesn’t have to happen in a city or a university or an environment full of people, it can just as easily happen, if you’re interacting with ideas from many people online, in books and across other modes of communication. The key is “connectedness.” 1. Solve problems The easiest way to come up with business ideas is to solve problems you have. The second easiest is to solve problems others have. These don’t have to be big solutions like Google search or Amazon, they could be much smaller. Many of the products you have become used to using were actually invented to solve a problem, including Thermo-flasks to keep coffee/food warm, sunglasses to protect from the glare, security alarms to alert you that someone has broken in, fire hydrants to put out a fire before the whole place goes up, toothbrushes to keep your teeth clean, and dental floss to fish out unwanted food. The list is literally endless. All you have to do is get good at identifying problems. Once you’ve realized that each of your own frustrations is actually an idea in the making, you’re actually going to start having fun!
  • 5.
    You might considera frustration of yours that you’d wish there was a product for something you probably think is too obvious—a jewelry stand. Because you have so much jewelry, You have to stick thumb tacks in the wall to hold it all up. There is no stand you have seen on the market to solve this problem—only small stands for a time long past when people bought fewer but more expensive items. Today, Iyou might describe fashion as “disposable.” You buy something, you wear it a few times and set it aside, partly because things like costume jewelry have become so cheap. Ever heard of GoPro? They’re a camera company that got started in 2002. Founder Nick Woodman had recently been on a surfing trip to Indonesia. Nick was unable to find amateur photographers who could get close enough to get good action-shot pictures of him surfing, or who could obtain quality equipment at an affordable price. The solution to the problem? The GoPro camera—a wide-angle lens HD camera capable of taking excellent video and good action shots, and which could go where other affordable cameras couldn’t. Snap one into a case and you can literally do anything with it, from scuba diving and extreme mountain biking to flying (and crashing) a model airplane. As you go about your daily tasks, be they at home or work, try to get in the mindset of noticing the things that frustrate you. If you’ve been in a particular industry for a while, you may have good insight into this as there may be things that have been a problem for a long time. This is why venture capitalists like Boris Wertz see value in investing in those that have a lot of experience in the market they’re pitching their idea for. He calls it “the secret of the market.” It’s this secret or those problems that you have to identify.
  • 6.
    Let’s say, you’resitting at work, sitting at your desk—because that’s the only place you have two monitors—that irks you. A lot of the time, you need to leave your desk to do writing in a quieter area. But, without a second screen, writing and research don’t go hand in hand. You like to have your research up on the one screen and do your writing on the other. Moving away from your desk is always a sacrifice. The solution to this problem would of course be a laptop with two screens. Even if you work for someone else, try to get into the habit of finding the pain points. Once you get into the habit of finding problems, you’ll probably start to enjoy it. Remember, every problem is an opportunity for a new product, service, or company, especially if it’s a problem many others have too. 2. Solve things that may become problems Solving problems that you currently have is not the only way to come up with new ideas. Why not think of solving problems that will exist, but don’t yet? In this very futuristic sense, no one stands out quite so well here as Elon Musk. The ventures he undertakes, including Solar City and Tesla Motors, may make some scoff, but lack of fossil fuels will become a problem in the near future and Elon is taking steps to fix that before it happens. This gives him the time to innovate as he’s first in and it gives him market share. Good luck to others catching up!
  • 7.
    If you thinkthere’s not yet a market for your idea, you may just be able to create one by appealing to those that, like you, believe it will be a problem in the future. At present, there are numerous potential problems with obvious solutions, including desalination plants for California, a state that is quickly drying up and running out of water, preventative medication for diseases that could become problems (like Ebola), makeup and accessories to protect privacy when face recognition software really takes off, and breeding programs/nature reserves for animals that without help, will become extinct. 3. Adapt to evolving needs Physiological needs stay the same—the need for food, shelter, and water. Emotional needs tend to stand the same—envy, greed, pride, etc. What doesn’t stay the same are the products and services it takes to fulfill these needs. The easiest products to market are also products that fulfill a real or contemporary need. An example of a service that has quickly become popular is “cloud storage.” It’s a result of our very contemporary need to have access to our data, information, photos, music,
  • 8.
    and so on,no matter what device we’re on. Google sells cloud storage, as does Dropbox, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, and a host of private companies that do as well. 4. Save people money Yet another great way to come up with ideas is to think about saving people money. You may buy 23 watt energy-saving light bulbs because they’re affordable, not because they last for years and are actually the equivalent of a 100 watt light bulb, though that’s an obvious bonus too. You might fill up your car with ARCO gas because it’s cheaper than Chevron and Shell, even though they’re owned by BP who was responsible for the horrible Gulf spill. Some may prefer real-life bookstores not to vanish as a consequence of sites like Amazon, they still end up buying books on Amazon because it saves them a lot of money. The truth is, unless you’re earning hundreds of thousands of dollars, pounds, or euros, it’s still a luxury to be able to make more “moral decisions” to buy from and support better companies and people.
  • 9.
    This is why,if you can figure out how to save people money, you’ll have a good business idea, new or not. 5. Make people’s lives easier A coffee machine with a timer that ensures there’s hot coffee when you wake; a central vacuum cleaning system that means only carrying a hose and brush around the house rather than the full unit; a smart thermostat like Nest that can figure out how to save you energy; shopping baskets placed at convenient intervals in the store in case you decide you want to purchase more than what your arms can hold—the list goes on and on. Remember, coming up with business ideas doesn’t mean you have to focus on inventing new products or services. In fact, you could just as easily adapt an existing service or introduce a new benefit that makes peoples’ lives easier. Kohls is one company that is attracting return customers time and time again because they’ve got a lifetime return policy. Even if you’ve lost your box and your receipt they will take back a product and replace or refund it—your choice. Not only does this make you feel good about the company, but it keeps you coming back, despite the fact that their prices have obviously been marked up to account for this benefit. In short, it makes your life easy. There are always small ways you could be making things easier for yourself or for others. In fact, if you think about doing this, on an ongoing basis, you may find you’re
  • 10.
    also able torelease new products that are simply a version of the old product that makes someone’s life easier in some small way. The Waze Mobile App is a step up on GPS predecessors that did not include live traffic updates. This small addition makes the product so much more useful and helpful. Can you think of something—an action, product, service, or chore that could be adapted to make your life easier? A pair of Salamon trail running shoes do exactly this. Instead of normal laces, they have pull laces, which means they don’t come undone when running. They may not fit as well as others do, but they mean less stopping. Start looking at the things around you and asking, how could this be easier? How could it be more intuitive, less stressful, and in general more pleasant to use? You may find that even the tiniest change will create something incredibly popular. 6. Make chores or things that feel like tasks less unpleasant In the online world, marketers and developers often look to “gamifying” software in order to make using it feel less onerous. That is, they come up with small ways to reward you for taking an action. For example, The Strava app tracks distance and average speed as you go running. Each time you beat a previous record, Strava gives you a trophy or some other small acknowledgment that makes you feel that you’ve achieved something. Occasionally, this will push you to go a little bit further once you’ve got into the habit of
  • 11.
    receiving trophy icons- it’s very difficult to do a run and not get one! The point is, it makes your run a little more fun. How about the app Run an Empire? This app promises to make running even more fun (or less painful) than even the likes of Strava. It allows you, the runner, to capture territories. You’ll have to watch the full video if you want to understand how it works, but it’s clever. It stands to make the exhausting task of running feel like a game. And then there’s the possibility of making real chores—like going to the toilet—fun. Ever heard about Japan’s high-tech toilets? Well, they play music, have heated seats, blast warm air, and clean with jets of water. We haven’t taken it to that extreme here yet but that’s a great example of how to make an unpleasant task pleasant. Or so you can imagine. What do you hate doing? How could you make it more enjoyable? Maybe, you need someone to make hanging your clothes less of a pain, to make drinking water feel less like a “to do,” and to take all my bills and pay them for me. 7. Turn a hobby or something you’re passionate about into a business For those of you already actively making or doing something, this may be an obvious next step. Or, if you’ve been doing something on a regular basis and find yourself good at it but don’t think of it as a hobby, perhaps you should think about how it could be a business.
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    Things that youdo on a regular basis that could potentially be turned into business ideas such as glass painting, writing, researching, jewelry making, fixing jewelry, illuminated lettering, social media training, and so on. Everyone has things they do on a regular or semi-regular basis. If you’re good at any of these things and are looking for business ideas, you just might want to think about turning your hobby into a business. If you find the idea of starting a business intimidating, start with something you know. This way, it might not feel like a business and you’ll enjoy the process as you go. Be sure to think carefully about how you’ll feel if things do work out. You may find things suddenly become less enjoyable as you’ve got to start making them to meet customer demands or to pay the bills. Or, you might just need a new hobby! 8. Fulfill a need Take any of the human needs on Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs and think of the products and services created to meet these needs. Then, build on those.
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    Consider: As humans,we have a constant need to hydrate ourselves. If we did not drink water, we’d die. As such, we’ve had plumbing built into our houses and into all of the buildings we work in and visit. But, despite being able to pop in almost anywhere to drink water for free, companies have come up with additional ways to meet this need. They’ve provided solutions for water on the go. They’ve provided solutions for clean water on the go. They’ve provided solutions for flavored water on the go, for “vitamin” water, for water in bottles that won’t increase your risk of developing cancer. Move up to the love/belonging level on Maslow’s pyramid, and you get companies like Facebook that allow a user to feel a sense of connection to friends and family. Move up another level to esteem and you get the likes of Tony Robbins with books and tapes on how to achieve your dreams, improve your self-confidence, and become the best.
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    It might feela little manipulative looking at things this way, but many of the products you use already bear reference to these needs, including the toilet paper you buy (physiological), the locks you have on your door and the pepper spray you carry (safety), the birthday card you buy for your friend (love/belonging), the feedback you seek via recommendations on LinkedIn (esteem) and the tools and situations (like the Peace Corps) that allow you to practice your creativity, morality, or problem solving skills (self-actualization). 9. Appeal to a base emotion What makes you angry, what makes you happy, what makes you jealous? What does this to others? There’s a new social media site on the block that has capitalized on anger. It’s called Ello and even though it’s still only invite by request, already it’s got a lot of press, mainly because its appealed to those people that hate Facebook for essentially being a gigantic ad platform that sells their personal details on to other companies looking to make money. Author and renowned copywriter, Andy Maslen, phrases appealing to base emotions a little differently. He says, exploit a base emotion! Think of it as you will, positive or negative, but fundamentally, Andy is right. According to him, humans often make decisions based on one of seven emotions. These emotions are more popularly known as the seven deadly sins:
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    • Pride • Envy •Lust • Greed • Gluttony • Sloth • Anger (wrath) When you consider some of the services and products available to us today, you’ll quickly realize how many of them were invented to appeal to or take advantage of these emotions. Take beauty salons as an obvious example. How many people really need their nails buffed or their legs waxed to survive? The fact is, that as a society, we have taken evolutionary reactions a step further. Where cleaning hair may previously have been an action we took in order to attract a mate and look better than the competition, today we’ve taken it to the extreme. Now, rather than simply having products that get the job done, we have products that build on and create new needs like salt spray to add volume to hair, hair spray to hold a style, dry shampoo for when you don’t have time to shower. Companies are able to sell these products because they’re still able to exploit our base needs.
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    For people withfine hair, salt spray and volumizing shampoo is an easy sell. Oil, not so much, however for others that have thick, bushy hair, oils could be an easy sell. All of this is exploiting our pride. After all, none of these products are really necessary. Take a look at those seven deadly sins and see if you can think of how products and services you use on a regular basis are exploiting those needs. Perhaps you’ll even start picking up on how advertisers do the same! 10. Experience more It’s true that the more you do and the more you experience, the more material you will have at your disposal to be able to create new ideas, or stitch together seemingly disparate ideas. In fact, Bill Gates believes so strongly in the power of serendipity in order to come up with new ideas, that he frequently allots time to read books on a number of different subjects in a short amount of time. Nirmalya Kumar, Professor of Marketing at the London Business School, knows how important it is to be curious and to look outside of your your own business or industry in order to come up with new ideas.
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    In a videointerview, he says that if he did not read broadly and then try to find connections, he would always feel he was going to write or say the same thing as everyone else. Primarily reading outside of business helps him come up with new ideas and draw new correlations between topics. According to Nirmalya, “Intelligence and raw knowledge are overrated. It’s more important to have diverse interests.” 11. Get ideas from others There is no shame in this. In fact most good ideas are built upon someone else’s idea. Take J. K. Rowling and “Harry Potter.” Don’t you think the Death Eaters were modeled off the Ku Klux Klan, and that the spiders in the Forbidden Forest bared reference to Lord of the Rings, or that J. K. Rowling used myths as a basis from which to create the strange and fascinating creatures in her books. In fact, even the original and entirely fictional game of Quidditch has its origins in the idea that witches ride broomsticks. She simply built on this idea. How about the popular holiday destination in South Africa - Palace of the Lost City. It’s a gigantic resort modeled off the ruins of a real lost city. Like something you might
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    stumble across inCambodia, perhaps? There was probably a little bit of creative theft here. “Creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” - Albert Einstein