Dan Martell - July 11, 2016


How To Come Up With Winning Business Ideas (9 Simple Strategies)


Episode Stats

Length

11 minutes

Words per Minute

206.17548

Word Count

2,386

Sentence Count

92

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Um, I really, I really need to rewrite that
00:00:04.340 because that's, it's all like, so what are we starting with?
00:00:18.080 Nine ways to come up with great business ideas.
00:00:20.820 That's what I'm going to share in this video.
00:00:22.560 But maybe you're in a position where you're working nine to
00:00:24.960 five and you're like, I want to do something but I don't know
00:00:27.460 the right ideas to work on.
00:00:28.560 or you might have a bunch of ideas,
00:00:31.020 but I feel like maybe they're not the right ones
00:00:33.240 and I need to figure out if there's other strategies
00:00:35.600 to come up with even more.
00:00:36.740 That's what I'm gonna cover in this video.
00:00:38.300 You know, when I was getting going, 17 years old,
00:00:41.100 wanting to be an entrepreneur,
00:00:42.740 and I guess my motivation was really like,
00:00:44.840 I just didn't feel like I was gonna be employable.
00:00:46.880 Like, I didn't think anybody would wanna have me around.
00:00:49.840 I had to come up with ideas.
00:00:51.480 And this is, truthfully, the first business idea,
00:00:54.120 and I say it in air quotes because I'm not sure
00:00:57.080 it was very legal and it was definitely,
00:00:59.580 but it made money, so that's my filter,
00:01:01.860 that it was a product I built that people paid for
00:01:04.460 and it was a simple idea.
00:01:05.860 It was, you know, back in the day when I was starting off,
00:01:08.120 I had a computer and I had a DVD burner, a CD burner
00:01:11.200 and a lot of friends would come over
00:01:13.120 to look at my list of music that I had purchased
00:01:16.840 legally online and create their mix CD
00:01:20.540 for their girlfriend, you know, whatever
00:01:22.940 and it was just like frustrating
00:01:25.200 that they would be in my house, on my computer,
00:01:28.140 doing this process of going through hundreds of songs
00:01:30.900 and making those lists to eventually burn.
00:01:33.700 So what I did is I said, look,
00:01:34.880 there's gotta be a better way.
00:01:36.180 I'm going to instead create a simple application,
00:01:39.440 a simple tool that sits on their computer,
00:01:42.220 that connects up to the internet,
00:01:44.020 downloads all the songs that I have with the length they are
00:01:46.660 because really it was like, okay,
00:01:47.920 how many songs can I put for the amount of space on the CD?
00:01:51.900 And it would let them create their playlist
00:01:53.760 and then when they were done, it would send over the order
00:01:57.060 in 20 bucks, well, it didn't take the money,
00:01:58.600 they just gave me the cash when I gave them the CD.
00:02:00.840 That was the first product or idea I ever came up with,
00:02:04.200 and it was really just solving my own problem.
00:02:06.480 And a lot of you guys are saying,
00:02:07.300 well, I'm not technical, Dan.
00:02:08.600 I could never build something like that.
00:02:10.040 These ideas, these strategies I'm gonna share with you,
00:02:11.880 nine different ones, is to give you the opportunity
00:02:14.320 to just be creative.
00:02:15.980 Think about different industries.
00:02:18.220 Think about your skills, how those could be applied.
00:02:21.360 talking to the right people to get more ideas.
00:02:23.860 That's what we're gonna cover.
00:02:24.700 So the first one is talk to customers.
00:02:27.740 I think that there's a difference of just asking your friends,
00:02:30.460 is this a good idea, versus going to the mall
00:02:33.340 and seeing somebody walk out of a store and just say,
00:02:35.480 hey, do you have a few minutes?
00:02:36.780 I'd love to talk to you about this industry, this problem,
00:02:39.980 this purchase you just made.
00:02:42.140 And yeah, some people can be like, I'm too busy,
00:02:43.840 I can't talk to you, but you'd be surprised how many people
00:02:46.060 be like, yeah, you know, how can I answer your questions?
00:02:49.520 And you could do the same thing at the farmer's market.
00:02:51.360 Go to the farmer's market, stand at the door.
00:02:53.360 People go in, they walk out with product,
00:02:55.100 and you go like, do you mind if I ask a few questions
00:02:57.160 about the vegetables you just bought?
00:02:59.000 I'm thinking of starting this new kind of food truck
00:03:01.400 for organic vegetables, whatever it is.
00:03:03.440 But you talk to real people that have spent money.
00:03:05.700 Here's why, is those people are qualified.
00:03:08.880 They've actually proven they had the problem,
00:03:11.280 spent the money, and now you're getting their advice
00:03:13.580 on how could that process have been easier for you.
00:03:16.720 So talk to paying customers, not to people
00:03:19.280 just asking for good ideas.
00:03:20.720 Second one is mix and match, okay?
00:03:22.280 Now this is gonna sound crazy because again,
00:03:23.960 this is not just for software entrepreneurs,
00:03:25.500 and that's my background.
00:03:26.660 This is for anybody.
00:03:28.100 Just go to the hardware store and look at the different,
00:03:32.240 you know, look in an aisle and say,
00:03:34.500 is there an opportunity to take this product
00:03:36.960 and mix it with something else?
00:03:38.580 And you're going, really Dan, that's the idea?
00:03:41.580 I still remember the first time I saw a nightlight
00:03:44.280 that also had a USB charger built into it, right?
00:03:47.240 You go look on Kickstarter, a site for crowdfunding
00:03:50.560 different business ideas, and there are so many examples
00:03:53.800 of taking two or three different use cases
00:03:56.660 and putting them together into one physical product.
00:03:59.360 So I call that the mix and match.
00:04:00.540 And really, these strategies I'm sharing with you
00:04:02.380 is just to get the juices flowing, to be more creative,
00:04:05.180 to be the idea person, so it's not about like,
00:04:08.580 you know, I only have one idea, or I have no ideas,
00:04:10.880 it's I've got dozens, 20s, 30 different things
00:04:13.580 that I think could be an opportunity,
00:04:15.360 then it's to filter them down into the right one.
00:04:17.580 Right now we're just talking about volume, not quality.
00:04:20.560 The next one is interview big companies.
00:04:22.800 Here's the reasoning behind that is big companies
00:04:25.360 usually plan their year or their strategies,
00:04:28.300 their work for the next 16 months, two years, right?
00:04:30.940 So they have that kind of vision
00:04:32.780 of what their challenges are today,
00:04:34.600 what they're gonna build in the future,
00:04:35.980 and if you talk to five, six, seven, eight, nine,
00:04:38.280 10 different big companies, you might start to see patterns.
00:04:41.620 And first thing that people do when I share that strategy,
00:04:44.380 they go, well, Dan, why would a big company talk to me?
00:04:46.920 Pretend you're a journalist.
00:04:48.280 Maybe make it real.
00:04:49.420 You could reach out to them and say,
00:04:50.420 hey, I'm working on this blog post for this media outlet
00:04:54.100 and I'd love to ask you about your marketing strategies,
00:04:56.200 the way you execute your sales strategy.
00:04:58.000 Maybe it's the way you manage your infrastructure.
00:04:59.800 Maybe it's the way you buy a certain type of product.
00:05:02.200 And at the end of it, I'm gonna put together the research
00:05:04.740 and then publish it, but I'm also gonna give you
00:05:06.640 first access to it.
00:05:07.640 That's a great way to actually learn from a big company.
00:05:10.640 So before you dismiss it, that's the approach.
00:05:13.220 And yeah, some of them are gonna say no,
00:05:14.620 they're not gonna respond, but the ones that do
00:05:16.340 are gonna give you a goldmine of information
00:05:18.220 come up with really neat ideas for a business idea
00:05:21.320 that you could pursue.
00:05:22.460 The next one is searching online.
00:05:24.600 When I think of, you know, great ideas,
00:05:28.500 usually people have the pain and they're asking
00:05:31.200 their friends online about a solution.
00:05:33.300 So you could ask, check this out, on Twitter,
00:05:35.980 just search the term, is there an app for,
00:05:39.040 in double quotes, on the search,
00:05:41.180 and you will see a bunch of tweets of people asking
00:05:44.480 for different apps for different pains
00:05:46.020 that they're having in their life.
00:05:47.580 I mean, you could use an advanced search operator
00:05:50.420 on Google for forums, so forums is a place
00:05:53.060 where people go and talk about different topics
00:05:55.380 from cars to do-it-yourself home stuff to, you know, food,
00:05:59.620 and you can actually search just the forums
00:06:01.700 to see if anybody's talking about the pain
00:06:04.340 or idea that you might be having
00:06:06.060 to see if there's anything else that might come up.
00:06:08.140 Searching online, blog posts, comments, using Discuss,
00:06:12.180 there's an endless, going on Quora,
00:06:13.940 which is a Q and A, you know, question and answer site,
00:06:17.040 endless, endless opportunity for you to look at people
00:06:19.780 talking about real pains in their life
00:06:21.180 and also see how people have solved them
00:06:23.140 to see if there's an opportunity for you
00:06:24.620 to build a business around it.
00:06:26.160 The next one is to be asking what's next.
00:06:29.520 You know, I come from the technology world and innovation,
00:06:32.120 but this is true for any industry, right?
00:06:34.360 Wherever you're at, you can look and say,
00:06:35.960 what's next, what's coming next?
00:06:37.700 You could do the research on that.
00:06:39.140 You know, in the software world,
00:06:40.560 there's a presentation given every year
00:06:42.740 by a woman named Mary Meeker that talks about
00:06:44.740 the internet trends, and in that presentation,
00:06:47.340 she shows the research, the data, the trend lines,
00:06:51.560 on exactly what's coming over the next 15, 50 years,
00:06:54.760 and you can easily plot and say,
00:06:56.320 oh, yeah, I can see how that could be a big thing.
00:06:58.660 And again, we're just looking for quantity of ideas.
00:07:01.460 It could just give you a bunch of different areas
00:07:04.600 to then investigate deeper.
00:07:06.060 So asking yourself what next, I think, is really big.
00:07:09.060 The next one is your frustrations, okay?
00:07:12.160 Now, if you are a happy, zen person
00:07:14.920 that never gets frustrated with anybody
00:07:16.800 and you're happy all the time,
00:07:17.940 this one's gonna be tough
00:07:19.480 because I'm gonna ask you to turn on your frustration radar
00:07:22.580 where you start thinking about when you're out
00:07:25.540 and you're maybe getting a car wash
00:07:27.840 or paying for a bill with some friends
00:07:29.780 or picking up a new product to solve a problem at your house,
00:07:35.420 whatever it is, just write these ideas down.
00:07:39.160 James Altucher is famous for sharing his strategy
00:07:42.700 of every day writing down 10 different ideas
00:07:44.860 for himself and for other people that he cares about,
00:07:46.940 advisors, mentors, et cetera,
00:07:48.500 and just sharing those ideas with them
00:07:50.040 so he starts working that idea muscle.
00:07:53.340 And I think that the best place to start
00:07:54.880 is your frustration.
00:07:55.920 So that's a big strategy.
00:07:57.340 The next one is new field, same skills.
00:08:01.240 Here's how that works is you probably have a skill.
00:08:04.660 Maybe you're a designer, maybe you're a manager,
00:08:08.260 Maybe you're a marketer and there's probably other industries
00:08:11.740 or fields of study that you could apply your skills to
00:08:14.460 that don't really have a lot of new ideas around that
00:08:17.700 and you could just start talking to those industries
00:08:19.700 with your existing skillset and domain expertise
00:08:22.600 to see if there's ideas for a business in there.
00:08:25.640 So I like that one a lot.
00:08:26.940 And then the other one is industries with no innovation.
00:08:29.640 You know, my brother comes from the construction industry
00:08:32.660 so he started and there was literally,
00:08:35.760 it was building a house was still done the way
00:08:37.880 It had been done 50 years prior.
00:08:39.640 And what he did is brought a lot of innovation,
00:08:41.680 both in how he operated and he managed the list of contractors
00:08:47.220 and subcontractors and his team, but also the way he
00:08:49.920 communicated and he sold to customers.
00:08:52.440 So I think there's a great opportunity of just looking
00:08:54.840 and asking yourself, what are the slowest growing
00:08:58.320 innovative industries and how can we bring a bit of new
00:09:02.280 innovation to those sectors?
00:09:04.240 I think that's a great opportunity.
00:09:05.380 The next one, I think that's just a big idea,
00:09:08.720 is cheaper versions of something that's existing.
00:09:11.340 If you look at Uber, which is now a $90 billion company,
00:09:15.700 if you don't know what that is,
00:09:16.540 it's probably because it's been kicked out of your city,
00:09:19.220 but it's ordering a car on demand,
00:09:22.220 it's kind of like a taxi app.
00:09:24.160 But their vision was always to make it cheaper
00:09:27.000 than taking public transportation.
00:09:29.000 Yes, it started with black cars, then it went to UberX,
00:09:31.500 but now they're doing UberPool,
00:09:32.800 which is showing, teaching people a new behavior
00:09:35.400 where you're sharing the taxi or the car
00:09:38.480 with other people that are going in the same destination.
00:09:41.680 But cheaper versions of more expensive options today,
00:09:45.080 there's a lot of companies that do that.
00:09:46.820 I mean, a lot of innovation, I would argue, starts there,
00:09:49.720 where it's cheaper than the existing incumbent,
00:09:52.220 but, and a lot of people dismiss it
00:09:53.680 because it's almost like not real
00:09:56.220 and it doesn't have the real big features
00:09:58.020 that this thing has, it's not robust,
00:09:59.900 but over time it keeps iterating, iterating,
00:10:02.060 and getting better, better, and better
00:10:03.220 and eventually disrupts it.
00:10:04.220 So cheaper versions of something existing.
00:10:06.060 And the last one that I have for you
00:10:09.240 is finding a new growth niche.
00:10:12.740 You know, one of my favorite examples.
00:10:15.200 I mean, look at yoga back in the day with Lululemon.
00:10:17.800 Lululemon was like, okay, we want to make clothing
00:10:21.680 that is for active and day wear,
00:10:23.840 so it's not just like I wear it to go to the gym.
00:10:26.220 And they kind of looked at yoga,
00:10:28.280 yoga's new kind of ascension in the market
00:10:30.720 and say, we want to be the clothing for the yoga studios.
00:10:33.380 And sure, people bought it that never ever did yoga.
00:10:36.720 Same thing with CrossFit, right?
00:10:38.260 CrossFit is this crazy movement in the fitness
00:10:41.760 and health space that's grown like almost double every year.
00:10:44.960 And if you have, let's say, a booking software
00:10:48.000 or a supplement or even a t-shirt or kettlebells
00:10:52.680 or whatever it is and you kind of tag on to the CrossFit,
00:10:57.080 that's a huge opportunity for a great new idea.
00:10:59.940 So those nine ones that I shared with you today
00:11:02.380 is really for quantity, not quality.
00:11:04.480 In another video, I'm gonna share with you guys
00:11:06.140 how to go through the ideas that you might have
00:11:08.620 and figure out the best ones to pursue.
00:11:10.720 You know, I wanna invite you guys
00:11:11.920 to subscribe to my newsletter.
00:11:13.420 And as per usual, I wanna challenge you
00:11:15.020 to live a bigger life and a bigger business.
00:11:17.500 And I'll see you in the next video.
00:11:18.800 If you like this video, be sure to subscribe to my channel
00:11:21.200 to get other tips on how to start and scale your business.
00:11:23.800 I also have a free newsletter where I share training videos,
00:11:27.000 exclusive invites to events, and also community contests.
00:11:29.940 And if you want more information right now and content,
00:11:32.440 check out these couple videos and I'll see you next week.