5 ways to formulate a winning business idea

How many times have you kicked yourself over a new app launch or product reveal? How many times have you asked yourself, ‘why didn’t I think of that’? How many burgeoning businesses or services could you have developed – had you only sit down and had a good think? Well stop making excuses, gents, grab a cup of coffee, and follow these simple steps to make your millions.

A goldmine for gadget inventors, one of the best ways to come up with the next big thing is to think of what would make your life easier. Think Uber. Think the coffee collar. Think those foil-capped plastic wine glasses you can buy in train stations. Okay, maybe not that last one – but they do exist, were invented by businessman James Nash and made him a fortune.

The point is, you’ll have a lot more passion and fire for your project if it’s creating a utility, app or gadget that would genuinely improve your life. And, if you’ve been having a particular problem, the likelihood is that others have been having it too. Solve their problem, answer their prayers and your bank account will soon be blossoming.

Not all of us have the mind of Evan Spiegel, Steve Jobs or Zuckerberg, but many of us have great ideas bubbling just below the surface of our brains. As such, even though you may not go down in history as a visionary, creating new platforms and tech to run apps and programs, you could be one of the very, very rich people who create the content for such innovations.

Apps are a huge worldwide industry, expected to make $80 billion a year by 2020. And, as they’re only raking in $44 billion now, that’s a lot of growth you could be jumping into. As new platforms open up, it’s important to get there first, and formulate ideas that would work well in these new mediums. That may not be where the main money is, but it’ll get you well on your way.

Tweaking other people’s ideas or inventions may seem disingenuous, but it’s a surefire way to tap into an already-popular market share, and make a lot of money. Whenever a craze hits, be it the Tinder revolution or NutriBullets, tens of imitations jump on the coattails of these inventions, altering the design ever so slightly whilst keeping the USP.

The key here is to try to better the product in some way. This may be economics, figuring out how to produce a product a little more cheaply than a competitor, and selling more to overtake them in earnings – or it could be a design or functionality tweak, making the app or product more user friendly, or adding another conceit to an existing idea. Think Bumble, like Tinder – but the woman has to speak first.

The majority of us are talented in at least one sector. Bad luck if you’re not top of the pile at anything, but if you are – and are desperately trying to start a business idea using your particular set of skills – then broaden your horizons a little.

Don’t necessarily ignore your existing talents, however. Instead, try reapplying them but to a different industry. If you’re a great chef, perhaps look into creating a recipe app rather than opening a restaurant, for example. Your skills are more transferable than you may think, and it might just so happen that unlikely worlds colliding is what it’ll take for you to make your millions.

This is an obvious one, but there’s a knack to it. Certain industries – such as those flogging smartphones or cola – are all but wrapped up, destined to be monopolised forever. But there are other markets which have fallen into convenient comfort – ripe for modernising or overhauling but lacking the dedicated individual to make the move (and his millions). Find one such industry, and your fortune will follow soon after.

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