Entrepreneurship: Matching the Idea to the Entrepreneur

For many, the idea of starting your own business is really exciting. You can create your own freedom and your own destiny with your career. But for many, it can also be overwhelming. There are so many different businesses that you could create, which is the right one for you? In my experience coaching both successful entrepreneurs and ones who have failed in the past, I've learned the path of finding the best opportunity possible. In this article, we'll first cover how to understand yourself. Because who you are will lead you to the best possible business.

Know yourself as the entrepreneur

When it comes to finding a new business idea there are so many resources that you might use. There are lists online of businesses that you can create or even books about the topic. However, I suggest that this is not the ideal approach to take. is not the ideal approach to take. Instead, we want to focus on you, who you are and what makes you great. Some of the greatest entrepreneurs in the world come from businesses that they already had some familiarity with. already had some familiarity with. The model that I like to use is gifts plus loves plus skills equals talents.

It's at the intersection of these three things where your talents lie and what make you great.

Be aware of needs

If talents are about who you are, then needs are about what other people want. It's about the pain that they have. The best entrepreneurs cultivate an awareness of the world around them and the needs that other people have. The most basic example of a business that's based on needs might be if you use a dry cleaning on a regular basis. Let's say that you used it weekly. Then you move to a new area and find that there are no dry cleaners nearby. This is an example of a need that could exist in the marketplace.

It could be a good business idea. The idea is to discover the pains that other people have. I've provided you with a worksheet that you can use to go through this process. There are a series of questions that you want to explore. First, about yourself, what's missing in your day? Or what's too hard? What's too difficult for you? Also, you can explore that question as it relates to other people. The third question deals with just things that other people are asking you to do or give.

Perhaps people discovered that you have a gift.

Develop the new business idealist

Now we're going to come up with a brainstorm list of business ideas. The most important rule in this process does not edit anything. is do not edit anything. All of your ideas, any idea right now is good. Just put it down. I've provided you with a worksheet that has 20 spaces for your brainstorm business ideas. Your goal is to get at least ten ideas now. We just want to have an initial list that we can edit from in the future. So take a look at the work that you did previously. Look at your Needs Worksheet.

What business ideas could relate to the needs that you saw? What business ideas could relate to the needs that you saw? Or what businesses already exist related to those needs? Or what businesses already exist related to those needs? Remember you don't have to come up with an original idea. An existing business can be fine for you. Next, take a look at that talents worksheet that you created and ask yourself, what are businesses that are related to the talents that I already have? Add any ideas that you have onto that list.

Narrow the list to your best ideas

So we created a good list of starting business ideas. Now what? Well, you'll notice, on that worksheet, that there are three more columns, head, heart, and rank. We want to get your list down to the top five best ideas, and here's how we're going to do it. First, let's start with the head column. We want to check the box for any idea that just simply makes sense, that it's logical, that you can see the numbers lining up. Now before, we were just throwing crazy ideas, and we weren't editing anything because we were brainstorming.

Now it's time to get logical. Check off the box for anything that makes sense in your head. In the next column, we're focusing on your heart. How does it feel? As an entrepreneur, you need to be excited about what you're doing. So we want to check the box for any ideas that are exciting or interesting or that you're passionate about. Complete this process for the full list. If you don't know fully the answer or whether it makes sense in your head or your heart, just put a question mark.