Aggrey Jonathan K Bett

How to generate a viable business idea

A viable business is born of a problem-solving business idea. The foremost and most crucial step in starting a business is to have a desire and an idea or a vision of what you want to do. To identify business ideas, you must imagine, self-search, and search the consumer universe to find viable ideas and things you would love to do. You need to generate and brainstorm ideas. Your business idea can be to join an existing market and play in it with new ideas on how to supply products or services competitively. It could be to reform your ongoing business to grow and generate more profits. Your business idea could also be to create a new market or product that does not currently exist (a blue ocean).

The business idea you come up with should have matchless appeal, solve a problem for people (filling a void, a gap or a need in the market), and be profitable. A good business idea addresses people's concerns or removes pain for them. However, it has to be an idea that you have the ability and resources to carry it out and that it should be profitable in the short to medium term. A concept, product or service without the potential to generate cash flow (profit) will not survive.

The primary source of business ideas is unsolved problems and anything that makes life difficult or inconvenient. To succeed in business, look for big or small issues and provide solutions. You can quickly get excellent prospects if you interact with people, consumers and end-users of products and services and see what bothers them and their daily pains and frustrations. These should get you thinking of how to simplify things for them.

You must have the vision to have a good idea of what to do. Vision has many definitions, but it simply means the ability to see the end goal while still at the starting point—the ability to perceive something that is not visible yet. In addition, it is usually an attractive future position or something worth the effort. It would help if you mixed thought, desire, and faith to have a vision. In Hebrews 11:1 in the Bible, Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

In his book Business Secrets From The Bible (2014-p.52), Rabbi Daniel Lapin states, "You should not ask yourself how best to get rich, but rather, what do people around me want me to do for them? How can I fill their needs and desires? How can I improve their lives? Then, notify them of your ability to do that. Focus on service to the people, and wealth will follow." He said: "There is only one way to make money: find out what other people want or need, then provide those things to as many of our fellow humans as possible". These statements mean to succeed in business, your business idea should be about solving people's problems, not yours. You will generate more wealth if you become more valuable to more people.

According to Craig Hill's book Five Wealth Secrets 96% of Us Don't Know-2018, having a vision is more important than having capital. Vision precedes capital. Capital is synonymous with the provision (read provision where pro means favouring or coming to support the picture). Those studying the Bible might have seen that Proverbs 29:18 says, "Where there is no vision, the people perish". You can also read Six Thinking Hats by Edward de Bono (originally 1985). A quick way of generating business ideas is to:

1. Take stock of your knowledge, skills and experience.
2. Solve a problem that bothers you or others.
3. Talk to and observe customers at work to discover their needs.
4. Produce a better and cheaper product than the market.
5. Fill gaps where customers are under-served in products, services, delivery systems and customer care.
6. Look at trends in the market and life.
7. Create or invent a new product to solve an identified problem.
8. Add value or improve an existing product.
9. Produce something that enhances people's pleasure and esteem.
10. Save money and time for people.
11. Produce more of what exists to satisfy the demand that currently outstrips supply.
12. Travel, read, learn a new language, attend lectures, create hobbies, watch the news, discuss information with people, and do internships.
13. You should also ask God to show you your purpose in life or serving others, for business is about helping others and not yourself. Focus on the welfare and satisfaction of the people using your ideas, products or services, and you will be fine.
14. Think of a product with repeated sales, like selling bread.

Jobs To Be Done Theory

The above list of ways to generate business ideas is a good starting point. However, you should know people do not buy a product or a service for its features and benefits. Instead, they hire the product to solve a problem they have. Harvard Business School Professor Clayton Christensen developed the Jobs To Be Done (JTBD) theory, which states that customers don't simply buy a product, service or its attributes -they "hire" it to do a "job" they need to be done. For example, people do not buy a light bulb for its sake. They buy the light it produces because they want their rooms lighted, and the light bulb does that. The JTBD is lighting the room. As you scan the market and consider underserved people's needs and the potential products to create to serve those needs, always keep in mind the job to be done, not the product features, unless the features help to do the job. Focus on the JTBD and how the product will do that job.

How do you know the job to be done? You must observe, talk to, and survey potential customers through various methods, including face-to-face interviews. Be sure to know their jobs to be done, which jobs are not being done as well as they would like, and how the job performance could be improved. Remember, you are a product and service user, too, and you should bring your own user experiences into play.

Jobs to be done have several options and alternatives that customers can hire to do their jobs. However, some alternatives may leave gaps or are not perfect substitutes. You need to know the other options that customers can employ, including their strengths and weaknesses and consider how you can creatively differentiate your products to do the customers' jobs better than rivals.   

These are excerpts from the book How To Start & Run Your Own Business in Amazon/Nuria Bookstore.