Top Small Business Ideas


Top Small Business Ideas. Success Business Ideas and Ideas for a Small Business.

In her excellent book 101 Answers to the Most Frequently Asked Questions from Entrepreneurs, Courtney Price suggested some intriguing entrepreneurial myths that I once thought were true myself. These will branch off powerful ideas for a small business.

Myth: The best product or service makes successful business ideas

Apparently not – if no one knows about your product or service! The key to business success is to penetrate your target market. Even if your product or service is not terribly original, you will be in business so long as your customers know about you. Instead of concentrating your efforts on how to create the most brilliant innovation of the 21st Century, settle for something that improves on an existing product or service even just so slightly.

To create a successful business, all you need is a slight edge over your competitors, and better marketing. Of course, if you are thinking of a wildly successful business with explosive growth trajectories, you will have to keep thinking. But it is much better to adopt the ‘ready, fire, aim’ instead of the ‘ready, aim, fire’ approach.

Myth: At the core of every successful business idea is a novel idea or invention

I later realized that as Price suggests, very few new business ideas are truly novel. Most of the businesses I noticed around me modify or improve on an existing product or service. Or they implement an idea that has worked in one country in another country.

If you are one of those still dreaming of that novel idea, shift your focus to how to improve or enhance existing venture ideas that have already worked.

Myth: Great ideas make successful business ideas

Not! As Price notes, great ideas are not necessarily practical, and vice versa. Top small business ideas aren’t usually brilliant; the one common trait they all share is that they give the customers what they want. Practical ideas are ideas that sometimes come from the customers themselves. If you keep your ear to the ground, you would find out about customers’ complaints, concerns, ‘wish-lists’ for certain products. The market itself is a wellspring of new ideas. Find unmet needs by discovering what customers are unhappy or dissatisfied with.


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