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

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 0.99

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.

Dan Martell - July 11, 2016

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

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