You don’t NEED a shiny new idea

I’ve heard this so many times, “I’d love to start a business, but I can never think of the idea of what I would do”.
You may have thought exactly that?
It IS a myth that you need something new. It’s born (quite understandably) of an anxiety that, “well, if there’s already someone doing this, how will I manage to break into it?”
Shock horror: Apple are (rightly) seen as one of the most innovative companies ever, but they certainly didn’t invent the touchscreen smartphone.
Google didn’t invent the search engine.
Amazon weren’t the first people to sell books online.
….I really could go on and on.
Of course, there're loads of examples of ‘firsts’ that made it big…but they really are unicorns (very rare…that’s why they’re known as unicorns).
Recycling of ideas has happened since the beginning of time and always will: the Harry Potter books are the highest grossing book series. Harry was an orphan with special powers. Luke Skywalker…an orphan with special powers…you can go back centuries to find stories about orphans with special powers — to the Bible and beyond- Moses was (you guessed it) an orphan with special powers.
So, you ABSOLUTELY DON’T need a brand-new idea.
I wasn’t ‘dissing’ Apple earlier. Arguably, their ‘IDEA’ is the user experience, the feel, the design
So, the idea can be the way you’ll EXECUTE ‘it’ that adds more value than your competitors!
You could literally take a Yellow Pages or any business directory (if you still have one), fan through the pages, pick a business and figure out how to make it better, cheaper, faster.
I’ll go one step further, while a brand-new product or service won’t have any competitors, it also has no customers! A marketplace with no customers is a lonely place. And it takes a LOT of money to build a marketplace.
Now, it might be because, genuinely, it’s a brand-new idea, and it solves a problem everyone has that no-one has ever spotted before……but I wouldn’t bet on it. Not in 2020.
So, don’t delay. Don’t obsess with waiting for that new, unique, fully test idea. Make the ‘idea’ YOU. Your passion, your energy, your creativity.
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