When you’re first starting out as an entrepreneur, looking for a business idea there are two common mistakes that you don’t want to make…
- You pick a market and opportunity based entirely on logical calculation
- You pick a market purely based on passion and blindly push ahead to create your business
Many new businesses start out with a business idea that they analyze to the n’th degree in terms of market sizing, opportunity, business cases, SWOT (Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats) and various other calculations based on well-known logical measurements. Due to lack of passion and interest, they die a slow and painful death.
Do you think that Bill Gates started Microsoft based purely on logic?
What about Richard Branson – did he start Virgin based on a cold calculation that music, airline or any of the other 300+ businesses he’s in is the best opportunity devoid of any feeling of passion or interest?
How about Walt Disney – do you believe all of his creations were based solely on opportunity and not passion.
What about Donald Trump – do you doubt for a minute that he doesn’t absolutely LOVE seeing his creations in places where there was nothing (or even worse) before?
Of course not – the answer is clearly that passion and interest drives the most successful businesses – in any case.
IS PASSION ENOUGH
So, you must be passionate and interested in the market and opportunity you identify as your business idea, but is that enough?
For those of you with a technology background, how many companies can you think of that self-destructed because they were led by a passionate technical genius that had no understanding of how important analyzing their market was? I can think of dozens of examples where companies were created in a vacuum by one technically brilliant person who had what he thought was a genius idea, only to figure out that nobody really wanted or needed his solution.
Sure, he was passionate, but ended up just as bankrupt as someone who started their business based solely on logical measurement.
THE REAL ANSWER
So – what’s the real answer?
Think of the ideal business idea as the perfect storm created when 3 factors collide:
- Passion and interest leads the way
- Guided by passion, let research, measurement and empathy (putting yourself in your customer’s shoes) guide you to the actual opportunity
- Driven by passion, guided by opportunity you align your value to a business model where your strengths shine through
If you had to summarize the most important factors in any successful business idea – and ultimately business enterprise, these 3 factors would be front and center.
Indeed – our entire Information Product Profits Formula for aspiring information publishing entrepreneurs is built around this exact 3-part system. When I see folks desperate to create their own ebooks, books, courses or information publishing businesses but haven’t yet been able to get started or have experienced low or no sales it can ALWAYS be traced back to missing one of these 3 success factors.
If you are just starting out evaluating business ideas or are in a position of re-evaluating your existing business, let passion lead you to your market space, do everything you can to understand the desires and motivations of that market and most of all…address the desires with a valuable solution that takes advantage of your skills and strengths.
If you are true to yourself, understand how to discover demand within a chosen market, know what your passions and skills are, then this system will prove foolproof in your quest to become the next business giant.
Jeff
