Free Workshop: For anyone struggling to find a business idea.

[AndrewNC]

Hey all,

In the upcoming month, I'll be starting a thread on here with the intent to solve the problem once and for all: To help any newbies here in finding their first business idea.

This is a common problem for a lot of people who join this forum, and by having a centralized area for information: It can help speed up the process of newer fastlaners in getting their business up and running.

I see a lot of people still jumping from idea to idea, lost and confused, and all the logical advice of "just stick with one thing, add value" is great advice, but I want to hammer down this issue to it's core - and make it so trying to find a business idea is a distant thing of the past, and anybody could do it within a very quick amount of time - so they don't waste years walking down the wrong path.

Instead of including information in the article about simply my experiences, I want to make sure the actual content is content that creates the changes in the other people who are reading on the other side.

A little bit about my background:

Over the past six years, I've sold many products and services: Anything from glow in the dark dog collars on amazon, udemy courses on motivation and spirituality, video training courses on personal development, service-based businesses, and a collection of digital magazine apps which turned into my first successful business.

On top of that, I've helped dozens of fastlaners, and hundreds of entrepreneurs choose which type of business works best for them. So I have a good idea of what the general sticking points are and how to get you on track. The purpose of my offer now is to narrow down the final sticking points.

Who this is for:
1. You actually want to start a business and understand it'll take years to build.
2. You're still looking for a business idea or product to sell.

Other information:
1. Since the purpose of this for me is turn this content into a text-based written article for this forum, all communication will be done either by posting your questions or current struggles on this thread, and/ or through Private Message with the title Selecting a Business to Start. Due to my busy schedule, I won't have time to talk to people in detail on Skype or through back-and-forth emails or anything like that.

 

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[Chinobey]

Hey all,

In the upcoming month, I'll be starting a thread on here with the intent to solve the problem once and for all: To help any newbies here in finding their first business idea.

This is a common problem for a lot of people who join this forum, and by having a centralized area for information: It can help speed up the process of newer fastlaners in getting their business up and running.

I see a lot of people still jumping from idea to idea, lost and confused, and all the logical advice of "just stick with one thing, add value" is great advice, but I want to hammer down this issue to it's core - and make it so trying to find a business idea is a distant thing of the past, and anybody could do it within a very quick amount of time - so they don't waste years walking down the wrong path.

Instead of including information in the article about simply my experiences, I want to make sure the actual content is content that creates the changes in the other people who are reading on the other side.

A little bit about my background:

Over the past six years, I've sold many products and services: Anything from glow in the dark dog collars on amazon, udemy courses on motivation and spirituality, video training courses on personal development, service-based businesses, and a collection of digital magazine apps which turned into my first successful business.

On top of that, I've helped dozens of fastlaners, and hundreds of entrepreneurs choose which type of business works best for them. So I have a good idea of what the general sticking points are and how to get you on track. The purpose of my offer now is to narrow down the final sticking points.

Who this is for:
1. You actually want to start a business and understand it'll take years to build.
2. You're still looking for a business idea or product to sell.

Other information:
1. Since the purpose of this for me is turn this content into a text-based written article for this forum, all communication will be done either by posting your questions or current struggles on this thread, and/ or through Private Message with the title Selecting a Business to Start. Due to my busy schedule, I won't have time to talk to people in detail on Skype or through back-and-forth emails or anything like that.

Sounds like this could be very valuable for me ive been jumping from idea to idea for months im not quite ready to start building a business yet but will be in the coming weeks and am struggling to find an idea to start with.

 

[AndrewNC]

ive been jumping from idea to idea for months

The purpose for jumping from idea to idea stems from your purpose for starting your business.

There are three levels of serving your purpose as the business owner.

1. Does it benefit me.
2. Does it benefit the customer.
3. Does it benefit the market as a whole.

When I read the millionaire fastlane , I heard about the lifestyle MJ lives (along with the other business owners having success out there), and I wanted the life they live. I wanted to quit my job, I wanted to travel, I wanted the nice cars, I wanted to make $10,000 per month. I'm sure you read a lot that this is a bad way to view things.

I disagree.

As far as the motivation that drives what you do, this is great. We need some type of fuel to light the fire, and if quitting your dreaded job or if the desire to travel through southeast asia is what moves you, this is great. That covers level 1.

That's what moves you, but it should never be your purpose.

Let's say the purpose of your business is to "make money"; there are countless ways to start your business, and if something is much more appealing, you'll be jumping onto the next thing because you see it working for something else.

The solution: Is to shift the focus away from the money (it's motivation, not your purpose), and towards solving a specific issue in the marketplace.

For years on end, people asked me what do I do.

"Well, I have an internet business, I sell stuff, and I travel." It's vague, and it's not a clear intent. I could jump ship from my apps to amazon sales and it will still fulfill my purpose.

There's a great TED talk from the guy who wrote Start with Why.

WHY do you do what you do?
WHAT do you do?
HOW do you do it?

For my book on happiness/emotional balance:

WHY - I once spent an entire winter in and out of doctors offices due to an unnecessary buildup of stress. After being prescribed dangerous medications, I went out and found a natural solution. Looking back, after finding this natural solution, I see people are unnecessarily struggling through things that are so easy to solve.

WHAT - "I help people break remove the emotional struggles they face; so they too can live an emotionally balanced and happy life."

The motto "Regardless of how chaotic and stressful life is on the outside; you are always in control of how you feel on the inside."

HOW - At this point, the HOW doesn't even matter for the customers. The purpose is to make them emotionally balanced and happy. I wrote a book that will teach you what I learned. I offer consulting sessions to remove an unhealthy buildup of stress and anxiety.

My purpose for this product is the WHAT.

Let's say the book made a few hundred sales since I released it in February. Somewhere around $1,000.

Guess what?

If @Scot makes a new thread talking about how he found this new hot things where he is raking in $40,000 per month selling ribbons that go on the tails of dogs, sold through Facebook ads....

If my purpose was to make money - I'm jumping ship and following his way to make money.

But instead, my purpose is to remove the emotional struggle from people's lives. All of a sudden, the money I see other people making doesn't even matter. Because when your purpose is about the thing you build, the problem you solve....your WHY is strong enough at your core, the WHAT is what you do, the why is the glue that keeps you holding in place despite any outside forces trying to pull you away.

struggling to find an idea to start with.

There's no such thing as a business idea.

I despise the phrase. But guess what...I used it in my title because I know how to speak to the people who are struggling with this problem.

There is no such thing as a business idea.

There is a problem you solve for the world, or something you create for the market.

So when you shift the focus away from "finding ideas", you CREATE what you want to solve and contribute to the world. After you do this, there are a string of questions to ask yourself to make sure it will turn your idea into something that will be well-received by the market and be able to turn into a business where people hand you money in return.

 

[AndrewNC]

makes a new thread talking about how he found this new hot things where he is raking in $40,000 per month selling ribbons that go on the tails of dogs, sold through Facebook ads....

If my purpose was to make money - I'm jumping ship and following his way to make money.

Let's build on this....

The analogy I like to use is building sand castles at a beach.

The amount of energy you put into something is the amount of energy your final creation has.

You want the big sand castle (big business).

You put down a few buckets of sand and see someone down the beach with a big sand castle. "Oh shoot, they chose the right spot, I don't have my big sand castle, so I go find a place near then and put down a few buckets of sand.

You see an even bigger sand castle down the beach.

You move down further and start over again.

All of a sudden, you have 100 piles of sand all across the beach, none of them reaching the threshold point of where your efforts begin to pay off.

There is a certain threshold.

In business, you work, you work, you work, you work and no results.

Most people give up before they reach this threshold and jump to a new thing.

But let's say your sand castle is 80% built, but you don't see it being done because you give up...Each and every time you walk down the beach and try to build something new, you're starting with 0 energy put into it, while the thing you left before has a lot of energy already built....but you just didn't cross that threshold to start being successful with it.

So while most people jump from idea to idea to idea...

You have your WHY (the glue) that keeps you where you are in the beach, and you know WHAT you are doing...building this ONE gigantic sandcastle...while everyone else keeps running around like kids on a beach with their neon colored buckets.

 

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[Chinobey]

The purpose for jumping from idea to idea stems from your purpose for starting your business.

There are three levels of serving your purpose as the business owner.

1. Does it benefit me.
2. Does it benefit the customer.
3. Does it benefit the market as a whole.

When I read the millionaire fastlane , I heard about the lifestyle MJ lives (along with the other business owners having success out there), and I wanted the life they live. I wanted to quit my job, I wanted to travel, I wanted the nice cars, I wanted to make $10,000 per month. I'm sure you read a lot that this is a bad way to view things.

I disagree.

As far as the motivation that drives what you do, this is great. We need some type of fuel to light the fire, and if quitting your dreaded job or if the desire to travel through southeast asia is what moves you, this is great. That covers level 1.

That's what moves you, but it should never be your purpose.

Let's say the purpose of your business is to "make money"; there are countless ways to start your business, and if something is much more appealing, you'll be jumping onto the next thing because you see it working for something else.

The solution: Is to shift the focus away from the money (it's motivation, not your purpose), and towards solving a specific issue in the marketplace.

For years on end, people asked me what do I do.

"Well, I have an internet business, I sell stuff, and I travel." It's vague, and it's not a clear intent. I could jump ship from my apps to amazon sales and it will still fulfill my purpose.

There's a great TED talk from the guy who wrote Start with Why.

WHY do you do what you do?
WHAT do you do?
HOW do you do it?

For my book on happiness/emotional balance:

WHY - I once spent an entire winter in and out of doctors offices due to an unnecessary buildup of stress. After being prescribed dangerous medications, I went out and found a natural solution. Looking back, after finding this natural solution, I see people are unnecessarily struggling through things that are so easy to solve.

WHAT - "I help people break remove the emotional struggles they face; so they too can live an emotionally balanced and happy life."

The motto "Regardless of how chaotic and stressful life is on the outside; you are always in control of how you feel on the inside."

HOW - At this point, the HOW doesn't even matter for the customers. The purpose is to make them emotionally balanced and happy. I wrote a book that will teach you what I learned. I offer consulting sessions to remove an unhealthy buildup of stress and anxiety.

My purpose for this product is the WHAT.

Let's say the book made a few hundred sales since I released it in February. Somewhere around $1,000.

Guess what?

If @Scot makes a new thread talking about how he found this new hot things where he is raking in $40,000 per month selling ribbons that go on the tails of dogs, sold through Facebook ads....

If my purpose was to make money - I'm jumping ship and following his way to make money.

But instead, my purpose is to remove the emotional struggle from people's lives. All of a sudden, the money I see other people making doesn't even matter. Because when your purpose is about the thing you build, the problem you solve....your WHY is strong enough at your core, the WHAT is what you do, the why is the glue that keeps you holding in place despite any outside forces trying to pull you away.



There's no such thing as a business idea.

I despise the phrase. But guess what...I used it in my title because I know how to speak to the people who are struggling with this problem.

There is no such thing as a business idea.

There is a problem you solve for the world, or something you create for the market.

So when you shift the focus away from "finding ideas", you CREATE what you want to solve and contribute to the world. After you do this, there are a string of questions to ask yourself to make sure it will turn your idea into something that will be well-received by the market and be able to turn into a business where people hand you money in return.

Thanks for this reply! This is a lot to think about i understood what you meant about there is no such thing as a 'business idea' rather there is a problem that needs a solution, so when i say i have been looking for that 'business idea' i also meant i have been looking for a problem that needs solving, i am sure i will find one or stumble upon one eventually.

 

[Hai]

The sandcastle analogy is great. I still think switching sandcastles in the beginning is ok, because you will stick with your castle for decades! Why continue building a castle that you don´t like?
Hope you can help some people find their castle on first try!

 

[AndrewNC]

i have been looking for a problem that needs solving, i am sure i will find one or stumble upon one eventually.

What problems have you overcome in your life? Problems you see other people having?

Solve problems you overcome.
For example, years ago I used to struggle from procrastination and laziness. It took a toll on my fitness, my income, my desire to go out and get relationships, and it was a struggle. So eventually I self-educated in psychology and human behavior and created a video course breaking down every aspect about why we procrastinate, and deconstructed the solution to help fix the problem in people's lives. I shared the information with others and put it up on udemy, and it's been making sales for years.

Years ago after my first business took off, I recorded my experience building my first business (the common struggles I faced and how I went through them) and created a video program for that too - sold it on this forum (since then I've took the marketplace ad down because some of the platforms I referenced are outdated).

Now - I help remove mental/emotional struggles for people struggling with things such as stress, anxiety, overwhelm, and people pay me thousands of dollars for 3-month consulting programs. I did this because (like my happiness book thing in the last post), this was a problem I went through and solved.

Dont' find an idea, but find a marketing outlet.
My first business was digital magazines. I found this business idea because:

1. People were already buying it.
2. I found a way to reach millions of people with a very easy way to market my magazines.

So the key to success in this 'business idea' was to find something others were selling, create a different version of it (niche magazines), and promote it. No genius idea here, and it has over a million readers.

You can do data/market research on google adwords or amazon to find out what products and markets are underserved, reading problems people have with existing products.

Find people around you who struggle with something.
My sister bought a new car the other day.

She told me how our parents were livid about it....she can barely pay her bills, maxes out her credit cards, and declared bankruptcy 10 years ago. She can't afford it, she doesn't need it, but she buys it.

Through my previous self-education in human behavior (mental/emotional attachments,etc.) I understand the root cause of compulsive buying and I'm able to get to the root cause of the behavior (not buying the car, not buying the pool for her house, not buying clothes on impulse), it's the emotional attachment to buying...

^Years ago, I didn't know how to solve it, so even if you don't know how to solve a problem, you go out searching for solutions, and that's part of the journey.

So looking at the problem my sister has, along with millions of other people with compulsive spending addictions...

That could be a business model in itself.

The same applies for compulsive gambling.

Don't go out looking...but simply begin to notice the struggles and frustrations that are already here.

 

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[AndrewNC]

The sandcastle analogy is great. I still think switching sandcastles in the beginning is ok, because you will stick with your castle for decades! Why continue building a castle that you don´t like?
Hope you can help some people find their castle on first try!

So true!

A lot of times while building our first business, the more important thing is learning the skills, so even if the business ends up not being the big business, you'll learn how to build the sandcastle...business.

Perhaps you master the art of paid traffic on facebook?
If you can rank one thing on amazon, you can rank another thing on amazon?

Shifting the purpose from building the business alone to learning the skills that can apply to any business, allows people to start building when they don't have the 100% faith that their idea will pay off.


The image above is the neurological levels of transformation.

One of our deepest drivers of human behavior is our unconscious VALUES.

"What's important to you in the relationship you are in and the person you want to marry?"

I want to date a girl who is into growing herself as a person, enjoys outdoor activities, spending time together, new adventures, and learning new things as we grow together.

I might date the girl dancing on the top of the tables at a bar drinking straight out of the whiskey body....but she's not who I'm going to spend my life with.

So if you realllyyyy want to make sure you get it right the first time, it's important to understand what your values are.

Why continue building a castle that you don´t like?

How to find out what you like at your deepest level (sounds like you figured this out, but for anyone else who is still struggling).

Step 1 - What is important to you in the business you start (list 20 things and don't stop until you're at 20).

Freedom to travel (Not a B&M business), it has to help people with health, it has to be a physical product, it has to be a software, etc.

Step 2 - Out of the 20 listed, what are the top 5, in order...

"If you could only have one of these, leaving the rest out, which value would it be." This finds your top value. Repeat for top 5

Step 3 - feedback criteria - how will you know when this value has been fulfilled?

Passive income - When I get a $2,000 deposit into my bank account from amazon after I didn't work for 2 weeks.
Physical product - when the manufacturer in china sends the sample or first order and i'm holding it in my hands.

Etc.

When you create a business that aligns with your VALUES...you'll know it's something you can commit to.

As long as there is a market for it...or you learn how to create a market for it....

 

[ZeroTo100]

Hey man,

Thanks for doing this. I feel like we all go through this stage at points in our life as entrepreneurs whether we are starting new ventures or already have a few under our belts.

In my case, I've had some success and I've had many failures and when I fail I seem to go on a serious binge where I just shut down and go awol for months and than I catch that bug and come firing back.

Here are my problems...Don't laugh lol

A) I have a lot of cash
B) I have too many ideas
C) I hate commitment unless I absolutely love something - like marriage
D) I have serious work ethics and I love to hustle
E) Not affraid of risk by any means

Couple of examples of my business experiences...

Back in the day I ran a nightlife and event marketing business and I made a killing. I had nights where I made $10k - $20k and I worked a full time job on top of that for pension/benefits reasons. I didn't even need this full-time job money, I just did it to satisfy my dad. I saved every penny I made and I shut it down when I got serious with my girlfriend and sold off the businesses assets to some old teammates. I had around a 7 year run.

When I grew up and got married and settled down, I started looking for business that had given me the same high and fulfillment - I found nothing. This really hurt my search for a long time. I wanted to produce something awesome and provide that experience that people were willing to pay a lot of money for and I really wasn't getting anywhere. I looked and I looked and I just wasn't approaching things the right way. Truthfully, I needed a mentor or a partner.

I toyed with some ideas and nothing really came to fruition.

Some time passes by and I had an idea that I was willing to COMMIT to. It was a nutritional subscription box that I had started but instead of a box, we delivered duffle bags loaded with cool fitness gear and supplements. This was in 2013 around the same time loot crate started and we had about the same number of people sign up for our launch as they did there's. People loved the experience and the brand but the numbers just didn't make sense to me. It was a failure. I had everyone from Xyience Energy (UFC brand) to BSN to major supplement players some publically traded involved. I was a solopreneur - no partners. This failure truly destroyed me inside because I really put everything into it - time, stress, money, and work.

I took some time off again but this time I was ready to call it quits. I was sick over it because there were times where I'd get emails from customers showing love and I just didn't know what to say. I was out of business for a year - nobody felt bad for me why should they? (good thing I kept that day job my dad insisted I keep). Then started going through everything from my Idea log to the inc5000 list, to online broker sites to see what kind of businesses were out there for sale and how I might be able to compete. I was idea hopping and my approach wasn't right...

One day I said F this. I was overwhelmed and I just kind of wanted an opportunity so I went back home to my roots in NY and started ringing bells of old friends to visit (I live in NJ now). First house I walk into to see my buddy who I haven't seen in a couple years wasn't home - he moved out after medical school but his grandfather was home. I walked in and the house was a disaster. BINGO! Hurricane sandy hit it and he had the first floor gut but never finished up. We literally spoke about a deal right there and I went home, ran my numbers and projections on the market and that was it. I funded the entire project and busted my a$$ which I only finished in May(I'll do a post with pics on this). I told myself I'm COMMITTING myself to this project the next 7 months because I know the market in my area and I know what this house will be worth. It paid off! We just got an offer and I should profit around $90k.

From my experiences, I think the problem is more at the core of the individual - in my case at the time it was "can I see myself doing this?" "Will I get tired of it fast?" "Is it fun?" "Can I make a boat load of cash doing it" these are the questions I asked myself. These are all selfish questions as MJ would say and he's right.

I realize that I should be focused more on opportunity and commitment. The rest will follow! I believe that if you focus on finding opportunity and you're willing to commit to something long term, you can't fail!

I should get paid on my project in the next 90 days and I'm somewhat confident now and willing to approach things differently with a new business.

Do you think you can find opportunity or do you think that opportunity finds you? What are your thoughts on my story?

Also, apologize for the long post.

 

[Olimac21]

So true!

A lot of times while building our first business, the more important thing is learning the skills, so even if the business ends up not being the big business, you'll learn how to build the sandcastle...business.

Perhaps you master the art of paid traffic on facebook?
If you can rank one thing on amazon, you can rank another thing on amazon?

Shifting the purpose from building the business alone to learning the skills that can apply to any business, allows people to start building when they don't have the 100% faith that their idea will pay off.

View attachment 15819
The image above is the neurological levels of transformation.

One of our deepest drivers of human behavior is our unconscious VALUES.

"What's important to you in the relationship you are in and the person you want to marry?"

I want to date a girl who is into growing herself as a person, enjoys outdoor activities, spending time together, new adventures, and learning new things as we grow together.

I might date the girl dancing on the top of the tables at a bar drinking straight out of the whiskey body....but she's not who I'm going to spend my life with.

So if you realllyyyy want to make sure you get it right the first time, it's important to understand what your values are.



How to find out what you like at your deepest level (sounds like you figured this out, but for anyone else who is still struggling).

Step 1 - What is important to you in the business you start (list 20 things and don't stop until you're at 20).

Freedom to travel (Not a B&M business), it has to help people with health, it has to be a physical product, it has to be a software, etc.

Step 2 - Out of the 20 listed, what are the top 5, in order...

"If you could only have one of these, leaving the rest out, which value would it be." This finds your top value. Repeat for top 5

Step 3 - feedback criteria - how will you know when this value has been fulfilled?

Passive income - When I get a $2,000 deposit into my bank account from amazon after I didn't work for 2 weeks.
Physical product - when the manufacturer in china sends the sample or first order and i'm holding it in my hands.

Etc.

When you create a business that aligns with your VALUES...you'll know it's something you can commit to.

As long as there is a market for it...or you learn how to create a market for it....

This is really really good thanks for sharing!

 

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[freelancedev]

Hi Andrew

Interesting thread, this is definitely a pain point in the entrepreneurial community, but a very difficult one to solve in my opinion.

I think most of us who are new to business and have read TMF and unscripted understand that the only way to succeed in business is by adding value in some way, but understanding how to add value is really difficult.

The advice that a lot of people will give is to do something you're already good at. If you work for a copywriting agency for example, it's likely that you have the framework in place to start your own copywriting agency. Or perhaps like @Joe Cassandra if you have experience in the finance industry, you are equipt to go into copywriting as an expert in the industry to help companies with their copywriting by adding value in a way that a generic copywriter cannot.

The question is, what approach should someone who does not have this sort of experience take? There are a lot of young guys on this forum who likely have no specialised skills/knowledge to go on whatsoever.

I work in customer services for a commodity company for example, where solving pain points in the industry is difficult due to the bland nature of the products being sold and the heavy regulation. I'm sure many are in the same situation though, doing a job where there is limited scope to develop a career and start to understand the industry and find problems that can be solved.

The next logical step then would be to look at hobbies and see whether there are any opportunities to add value to industries where your hobbies lie. Again though, this all depends on what hobbies you have, and whether you think there are problems you can solve. Again I personally don't feel there are any problems I can solve within the industry of my hobbies, and I'm sure there are many like that also.

I think this leaves many people in a position of being like a leaf in the wind, being blown from one idea to the next, because their desire to add value to an industry is not grounded in experience and understanding of that industry.

I've been reading an interesting book lately called 'Opportunity identification and entrepreneurship' which is about studying why and how people become successful entrepreneurs. In the first chapter of the book, they reveal that the serial entrepreneurs they looked at (serial being defined as someone having more than one success, so as to weed out people who got lucky once. People who are clearly far removed from the average and achieve extraordinary results) found most of their opportunities in industries they were already working in.

Finding a business idea for these ultra successful entrepreneurs was a process of using their domain specific knowledge to scan for problems and opportunities. The fact that they had domain specific knowledge allowed them to find pain points easier and put them in a more advantageous position than the average Joe, they leveraged their knowledge and this seems to make a big difference when finding opportunities. They found opportunities, because of their experience, that others could not see.

Everywhere I look now I seem to be seeing entrepreneurs who were successful after already having worked in the industry that their successful business was built in, rather than just jumping in blindly.

With the above in mind, it seems difficult and unlikely for someone to go from 0-100 in an industry they have to prior knowledge or understanding of.

So this leaves a lot of newbies in a predicament with two options:
1) Do nothing, hope for the big blockbuster idea to come along
2) Do something, feel unconfident and solve needs poorly

Option two is the one that seems to be the way forward.

It's daunting and difficult to just throw yourself into something, and that's why a lot of people (my self included) struggle I think.

I am personally considering just starting on upwork with my limited skill set that I currently have for online marketing and just helping businesses, and then trying to focus on a specific niche to become known as the go-to guy for online marketing in that niche. My gut feeling is that this approach is overplayed, but I know that logically anyone can come along and take a piece of the market and that domain specific knowledge acquired may take you in a different, more lucrative direction anyway.

Another suggestion that people seem to make is to just start flipping items. Again I can see how buying and selling fitness equipment (I seem to recall someone on here doing it with bicycles?) for example can naturally progress into an ecommerce store perhaps or gaining an understanding of what your core buyers want and how to launch a business to meet that need.

Something interesting that I've witnessed recently is an instagram account which I follow about watches. The premise of the account is to post pictures of celebrities wearing watches and identify which watch it is that they're wearing. The owner had recently started posting instagram stories brokering second hand watch sales for luxury watches worth $xx,xxx. He has built an audience interested in these watches, and if he is successfully selling them I bet he is getting a great commission. This guy has probably identified an opportunity for people wanting to sell watches (maybe they're sick of paying high eBay fees) which he wouldn't have seen if he had not started. And he has already done the legwork of building an audience who are interested in what he is selling.

I'm interested to see what your take is on what I'm saying here Andrew, I'm still not confident that what I am writing in this post is correct as it comes from a position of never having built a successful business.

I know that a lot of my anxiety and disappointment in myself comes from sitting on the sidelines and not having a business idea, but I feel like just jumping in and hustling might be the best way forward for people in my situation.

 

[ZeroTo100]

So true!

A lot of times while building our first business, the more important thing is learning the skills, so even if the business ends up not being the big business, you'll learn how to build the sandcastle...business.

Perhaps you master the art of paid traffic on facebook?
If you can rank one thing on amazon, you can rank another thing on amazon?

Shifting the purpose from building the business alone to learning the skills that can apply to any business, allows people to start building when they don't have the 100% faith that their idea will pay off.

View attachment 15819
The image above is the neurological levels of transformation.

One of our deepest drivers of human behavior is our unconscious VALUES.

"What's important to you in the relationship you are in and the person you want to marry?"

I want to date a girl who is into growing herself as a person, enjoys outdoor activities, spending time together, new adventures, and learning new things as we grow together.

I might date the girl dancing on the top of the tables at a bar drinking straight out of the whiskey body....but she's not who I'm going to spend my life with.

So if you realllyyyy want to make sure you get it right the first time, it's important to understand what your values are.



How to find out what you like at your deepest level (sounds like you figured this out, but for anyone else who is still struggling).

Step 1 - What is important to you in the business you start (list 20 things and don't stop until you're at 20).

Freedom to travel (Not a B&M business), it has to help people with health, it has to be a physical product, it has to be a software, etc.

Step 2 - Out of the 20 listed, what are the top 5, in order...

"If you could only have one of these, leaving the rest out, which value would it be." This finds your top value. Repeat for top 5

Step 3 - feedback criteria - how will you know when this value has been fulfilled?

Passive income - When I get a $2,000 deposit into my bank account from amazon after I didn't work for 2 weeks.
Physical product - when the manufacturer in china sends the sample or first order and i'm holding it in my hands.

Etc.

When you create a business that aligns with your VALUES...you'll know it's something you can commit to.

As long as there is a market for it...or you learn how to create a market for it....

This is super helpful.

 

[ZeroTo100]

How many entrepreneurs actually read through their idea log and say hey, I think I'll pick this one?

What are your thoughts on the decision being more instinct or gut?

 

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[gatorgus]

Let's build on this....

The analogy I like to use is building sand castles at a beach.

The amount of energy you put into something is the amount of energy your final creation has.

You want the big sand castle (big business).

You put down a few buckets of sand and see someone down the beach with a big sand castle. "Oh shoot, they chose the right spot, I don't have my big sand castle, so I go find a place near then and put down a few buckets of sand.

You see an even bigger sand castle down the beach.

You move down further and start over again.

All of a sudden, you have 100 piles of sand all across the beach, none of them reaching the threshold point of where your efforts begin to pay off.

There is a certain threshold.

In business, you work, you work, you work, you work and no results.

Most people give up before they reach this threshold and jump to a new thing.

But let's say your sand castle is 80% built, but you don't see it being done because you give up...Each and every time you walk down the beach and try to build something new, you're starting with 0 energy put into it, while the thing you left before has a lot of energy already built....but you just didn't cross that threshold to start being successful with it.

So while most people jump from idea to idea to idea...

You have your WHY (the glue) that keeps you where you are in the beach, and you know WHAT you are doing...building this ONE gigantic sandcastle...while everyone else keeps running around like kids on a beach with their neon colored buckets.

Terrific thread. I had my F this moment 3 months ago, right before I read Unscripted . Since then I've started keeping a notebook to document potential opportunities to help people that I take with me everywhere. My notebook contains dozens of ideas, but none that I have committed to pursuing so far. I'm eager to get started on something, but am stuck on the direction right now. I'll be following along with this thread closely to see how I might be able to propel myself forward.

 

[ZeroTo100]

Hi Andrew

Interesting thread, this is definitely a pain point in the entrepreneurial community, but a very difficult one to solve in my opinion.

I think most of us who are new to business and have read TMF and unscripted understand that the only way to succeed in business is by adding value in some way, but understanding how to add value is really difficult.

The advice that a lot of people will give is to do something you're already good at. If you work for a copywriting agency for example, it's likely that you have the framework in place to start your own copywriting agency. Or perhaps like @Joe Cassandra if you have experience in the finance industry, you are equipt to go into copywriting as an expert in the industry to help companies with their copywriting by adding value in a way that a generic copywriter cannot.

The question is, what approach should someone who does not have this sort of experience take? There are a lot of young guys on this forum who likely have no specialised skills/knowledge to go on whatsoever.

I work in customer services for a commodity company for example, where solving pain points in the industry is difficult due to the bland nature of the products being sold and the heavy regulation. I'm sure many are in the same situation though, doing a job where there is limited scope to develop a career and start to understand the industry and find problems that can be solved.

The next logical step then would be to look at hobbies and see whether there are any opportunities to add value to industries where your hobbies lie. Again though, this all depends on what hobbies you have, and whether you think there are problems you can solve. Again I personally don't feel there are any problems I can solve within the industry of my hobbies, and I'm sure there are many like that also.

I think this leaves many people in a position of being like a leaf in the wind, being blown from one idea to the next, because their desire to add value to an industry is not grounded in experience and understanding of that industry.

I've been reading an interesting book lately called 'Opportunity identification and entrepreneurship' which is about studying why and how people become successful entrepreneurs. In the first chapter of the book, they reveal that the serial entrepreneurs they looked at (serial being defined as someone having more than one success, so as to weed out people who got lucky once. People who are clearly far removed from the average and achieve extraordinary results) found most of their opportunities in industries they were already working in.

Finding a business idea for these ultra successful entrepreneurs was a process of using their domain specific knowledge to scan for problems and opportunities. The fact that they had domain specific knowledge allowed them to find pain points easier and put them in a more advantageous position than the average Joe, they leveraged their knowledge and this seems to make a big difference when finding opportunities. They found opportunities, because of their experience, that others could not see.

Everywhere I look now I seem to be seeing entrepreneurs who were successful after already having worked in the industry that their successful business was built in, rather than just jumping in blindly.

With the above in mind, it seems difficult and unlikely for someone to go from 0-100 in an industry they have to prior knowledge or understanding of.

So this leaves a lot of newbies in a predicament with two options:
1) Do nothing, hope for the big blockbuster idea to come along
2) Do something, feel unconfident and solve needs poorly

Option two is the one that seems to be the way forward.

It's daunting and difficult to just throw yourself into something, and that's why a lot of people (my self included) struggle I think.

I am personally considering just starting on upwork with my limited skill set that I currently have for online marketing and just helping businesses, and then trying to focus on a specific niche to become known as the go-to guy for online marketing in that niche. My gut feeling is that this approach is overplayed, but I know that logically anyone can come along and take a piece of the market and that domain specific knowledge acquired may take you in a different, more lucrative direction anyway.

Another suggestion that people seem to make is to just start flipping items. Again I can see how buying and selling fitness equipment (I seem to recall someone on here doing it with bicycles?) for example can naturally progress into an ecommerce store perhaps or gaining an understanding of what your core buyers want and how to launch a business to meet that need.

Something interesting that I've witnessed recently is an instagram account which I follow about watches. The premise of the account is to post pictures of celebrities wearing watches and identify which watch it is that they're wearing. The owner had recently started posting instagram stories brokering second hand watch sales for luxury watches worth $xx,xxx. He has built an audience interested in these watches, and if he is successfully selling them I bet he is getting a great commission. This guy has probably identified an opportunity for people wanting to sell watches (maybe they're sick of paying high eBay fees) which he wouldn't have seen if he had not started. And he has already done the legwork of building an audience who are interested in what he is selling.

I'm interested to see what your take is on what I'm saying here Andrew, I'm still not confident that what I am writing in this post is correct as it comes from a position of never having built a successful business.

I know that a lot of my anxiety and disappointment in myself comes from sitting on the sidelines and not having a business idea, but I feel like just jumping in and hustling might be the best way forward for people in my situation.

I think you're entirely correct with this post. From my experience with having a little success, I really just was interested in the business, I was frustrated (business was in nightlife and I was turned down at the door), so I started emailing everyone on MySpace that I knew in the business and worked for them. Then I left them and started my own business.

That was the most success I've ever had aside from some RE investments.

I noticed 2 things about a lot of my failures though after reading through these posts...A) I didn't have the appropriate contacts/network in place to get them going and was too lazy to go after them because I just didn't have that energy about the idea. Maybe it was a good idea but I just didn't feel in my heart strongly enough about making it work. B) I gave up too soon. It wasn't that I wasn't smart enough or didn't know enough about the ideas (they were good ideas) and it wasn't the capital. I think we can all learn when we get to that point but you legit have to feel connected to what you want to do so much so that you stay committed to it.

Take a look at this thread for starting from nowhere.

GOLD - No network? No money? No idea? No education? NO PROBLEM!

I just finished up a RE rehab and now I'm at the point where im looking for what's next. I don't think I ever want to do a Rehab again unless it's my own place. I had everyone involved and busted my butt on it but it was worth the work.

I think I'm going to embed myself in a market that interest me. Connect with people, maybe start a blog, build a little network and hopefully find some pain points or problems. Maybe I'll look for a partner.

In terms of investments, I'll keep doing what I'm doing.

 

[AndrewNC]

Do you think you can find opportunity or do you think that opportunity finds you? What are your thoughts on my story?

I hope I understand your questions correctly. You listed a bunch of problems, but I don't really see a problem at all. Things have happened in the past, you learned from them and you're working on an opportunity right now.

I have a belief that when you set your intent on something, opportunities come to you.

I was listening to an @Andy Black recording with one of the members on sales. He said when he wanted someone to work with (I think a designer or someone to mentor or something), he notices how people just message him at just the right time. I feel that when you decide exactly what you want to do, your awareness opens up and you are more receptive to noticing the opportunities and putting the pieces together.

When I decided I wanted to do an NLP video training, a few days later, someone messaged me asking for a skype mentorship. I wasn't even really looking for that type of business model, but it came to me; and it's much more valuable than the videos alone (for the person I trained and for myself).

C) I hate commitment unless I absolutely love something

For the commitment, I don't see it as a bad thing at all. I have a friend who engineers, designs, and sells innovative dog toys. He doesn't absolutely love dog toys...and I don't think he even owns a dog. But he is an engineer and a marketer at heart. He loves to commit to designing cool things.

I hope I answered your questions, because I don't see any real problems right now - you're taking action and you have the opportunity of something you are working on. If I missed something, let me know1

 

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[AndrewNC]

1) Do nothing, hope for the big blockbuster idea to come along
2) Do something, feel unconfident and solve needs poorly

If you choose number 2, focus on learning the skills instead of getting the results...if this is your first business. And run forward as fast as possible. Do something. Measure results (did it work, did it not work) and repeat.

Take the example below...

Something interesting that I've witnessed recently is an instagram account which I follow about watches. The premise of the account is to post pictures of celebrities wearing watches and identify which watch it is that they're wearing. The owner had recently started posting instagram stories brokering second hand watch sales for luxury watches worth $xx,xxx. He has built an audience interested in these watches, and if he is successfully selling them I bet he is getting a great commission. This guy has probably identified an opportunity for people wanting to sell watches (maybe they're sick of paying high eBay fees) which he wouldn't have seen if he had not started. And he has already done the legwork of building an audience who are interested in what he is selling.

Remove the word watches from your paragraph above and fill in the blanks with designer hats/necklaces/etc.

Pay attention to the structure of the process instead of the content. I had a mentor from this forum who said if you can start a business, you can start any business.

When all the famous rap artists begin wearing the same brand, guess what most of the people who listen to rap will start doing...they will buy that brand because their favorite rapper is wearing it.

So if you can be the marketer who is kick a$$ with the skill of getting a niche industry of influencers to all promote the same product at once, over the course of a few months, and flood the market with a product....these skills can apply to any product in the future and you have a highly valuable skill set.

My core competencies/strengths are developing products and services that deliver....if someone came up to me and said they would do the marketing for the product...I'd give up a nice % of sales that I wouldn't otherwise get if it wasn't for their marketing skills.

my limited skill set that I currently have for online marketing and just helping businesses, and then trying to focus on a specific niche to become known as the go-to guy for online marketing in that niche.

Here's an idea for you....since you mentioned watches.

I offer services that release emotional struggles from people's lives. I've primarily been targeting people with a net worth of $1M-$5M to offer a 3-4 month package for my services. I once had the idea of importing 5 (yes, only 5) nice looking luxury watches with a Limitless logo on it, and having them numbered 1-5. The cost to import would be less than $10,000 and they would be quality.

Then, what if I target Chinese or Middle Eastern Billionaires who obviously have the money, and offer the watches for $250,000 each (with the real benefit to them being one year of my services - on demand mindset and emotional reprogramming). They get the services, the limited edition watch (which funny enough I called The Limitless Collection lol), and then a black card with their personalized hotline phone number on it to call whenever they need help.

With the confidence in myself and my services, I would say this is a genius business idea. It would net close to $1.25 million for only 5 sales (A drop in the bucket for the ultra-high end demographic), with scarcity built in to the limited edition to 5 per year only.

But guess what, ideas aint worth shit!

If you could successfully execute on that idea for me and get the sales, I'd pay you $600,000 this year in a heartbeat...

There are a million inventors/relationship coaches/you name it with highly valuable skill-sets and products. But the vast majority of them don't know how to market or sell their product. Many would give up a high % of their sales if they can finally start getting the sales they want.

As for needing experience in an industry: I worked in customer service and never had any experience coding apps before I built an app portfolio (which now has 1,100,000 downloads). I still don't know how to code apps. I set a goal and things just kind of fell into place...

If I were you and you're just standing in place right now, I'd pick one niche....find a product owner who has a really cool product in a niche market...and then work out an agreement to do the instagram influencer marketing push for them in exchange for equity. If you have this skillset and you have the results you delivered for one person, I know many many people who would hire you and offer equity splits on the sales.

I have one more thing to talk about, but I'll type it out in a new post...

 

[AndrewNC]

but a very difficult one to solve in my opinion

Second part of the reply...

You're a logical person by the way you broke down the details of your post, and that's where I was when I found my first business.

I'll pre-frame this with the fact that what I'm about to share with you is something I've done with dozens of people already through skype calls to help them find their business ideas. It's going to sound crazy at first if you're on the logical side of the spectrum, but I say with confidence that it works.

Opening your mind to the other side of the spectrum:

I'm helping a friend start a business as a relationship coach. The article he is writing about 'Nice guys finish last." How most guys are given advice by their mothers to be respectful and nice. Then they see all the jerks attracting women...so they decide to be a jerk. But the way they go about being a jerk doesn't work either.

Two complete opposite ends of the see-saw.

Eventually, they develop the qualities (confidence, purpose/direction) that most of the jerks have, and as being the nice guy again, they found that perfect balance in the middle where they begin to have success with women.

"Don't ask if it's right or wrong, ask if it's useful."

Back in 2014, I got trained in something that helps people overcome bad habits, limiting decisions, and to release past emotional baggage.

In our unconscious mind is a thing called the Timeline. It keeps a perfect recollection of every past, present, and future memory we have ever experienced. So when someone came to me saying they had a problem with sleeping at night, I used a technique to have them access this timeline and float back all the way into her past to the first event that caused this problem.

She recalled vivid details of when she was 3 years old and her mother told her to go to sleep. She rebelled, and this was the cause of her not sleeping now. By learning the lessons from this event and getting in the emotional state of an hour before that event...the sleeping problem was resolved. Sometimes it takes a few tries, but it clears up the problem.

I've done this for years working with people's past....

But then, I remember during my training they talked about future memories.

I originally viewed this as our perception of the future, but then I began to experiment.

I floated 1 year in the future and envisioned myself standing on a bluff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. A year later, I forgot all about this vision and a girl invited me on a roadtrip. Through lots of things outside of my control, I made my way down to Cabrillo National Monument in San Diego...And found myself standing in that exact vision I created a year before.

So I began studying psychic things, metaphysical, inner-world stuff.

Some of them say that the past, present, and future is already happening at the same time (in some higher dimension), and we only consciously observe the present moment...so by accessing this timeline (imagine floating up out of your body, and floating back into the past or into the future), you are able to access information that your conscious/logical mind filters out.

How to use this to find a business idea...

Imagine floating up out of your body, and floating forward in time on your timeline, 6, 12, 18 months in the future to a time when you already have a business idea...

Look down at yourself as you already have the business idea....

Now floating into your body, seeing, hearing, and feeling as if you're already living that memory right now.

From that emotional state, look back in time, and ask yourself (what business idea did I already choose)?

The important thing is to not try to think of it (logical mind), but to pay attention to whatever naturally comes to your awareness.

Two real life examples of people I did this with...

One of them was toying between two ideas. One in the home goods industry and one in the automotive/race car industry. I had him access the future memory and look back...and used some technique to release some emotional blockage that was getting in the way; and he felt as if he was working in the automotive industry. The idea came to him, and a few hours after our call, he told me about how he heard of this luxury car show that's in his town the following weekend....he's going to go down and get feedback on that idea he had.

The other example was with the friend of mine who is doing the mens dating coaching business...he was toying between choosing a business name for his specific product idea, or a more general name (For example: How to get over your fear of rejection dot com vs Brand name for men dot com). He was in his future vision, and he had the intuition of the more general name. A few weeks later, after surveying his target market, he began to notice that most of the problems they face have nothing to do with his original specific idea, and that they need help with something else. When the saw his website with the general name, they were immediately attracted to his company).

There is this book called The Biology of Belief and a movie called What the Bleep do we know.

It's outside the realm of business, but the main tenant is that when you are open to the belief that what I talked about has truth to it...you'll be able to open up your unconscious mind to find information that was filtered out by you conscious mind. But if you have the belief that this is bogus...that belief in itself is the very steel door that closes you off to this.

Try it out a few times to float into the future memory and look back, and see what comes to your awareness when you're in that new emotional state, looking back.

 

[AndrewNC]

How many entrepreneurs actually read through their idea log and say hey, I think I'll pick this one?

What are your thoughts on the decision being more instinct or gut?

In my last reply I told the story about the dating coach and how he had this idea for (something specific related to dating - private)....

He had all these ideas in his mind of what he thought other people would want. But then I told him to go into dating forums and groups and offer free help to three guys per day for 100 days straight....

"What are you struggling with, and how can I help you?"

A Vegan Potluck

The other year I went to a vegan potluck. The vegans don't eat meat or dairy/cheese.

One of the guys who went (non-vegan) had the great idea to deliver his idea of a dish that included a little bit of milk. If you have any stereotype of angry animal rights activists, you should have seen what they did to this guy when he tried to dish his idea to them....they politely asked him to leave and then gossiped about him when he was gone.

What if someone has a great idea for a chicken dish and brings it to the vegans?

"This is in my recipe book, I had this idea for years and I think you will love it!!!!!"

Nope, goodbye.

Back to dating....

None of them listed his specific ideas. There's the ideas we have...and then there's what the market responds to.

So the advice I gave him was to personally reach out to three people in his target market every day for 100 days, and write down a list of every single problem and struggle they have, and help them through it. He'll eventually find common themes, and when he delivers what they are already looking for...boom - he has his coaching service and effective sales copy.

To be fair....his original idea is something that can help them too. With the right marketing/advertising/brand, he could create a need in the market like Tesla did with electric cars....but for now he's talking to people, finding out what they want, and giving them exactly what the want.

 

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[AndrewNC]

but none that I have committed to pursuing so far.

For how many months or years, specifically have you not been pursuing anything?

Let's say it's since you joined in May...4 months (looked at your profile to find your join date...Love Golden, CO btw!).

The question is why are you not committing to one idea?

It's because you don't want to waste time walking down the wrong path....right?

I mentioned this in a previous post, if you could develop the skills of building a business, you have the skill forever. I spent six months coding a social network for dead people. After 6 months, nobody signed up.

Guess what...I can now code a website (landing page/email opt in/etc.) in less than a day if I want to get a website up and running.

So over those 6 months, I developed a skill that lasts me forever.

So let's say you don't commit to one for 4 more months. You'll be sitting here, reading these threads, taking down more notes, doing what you do, and where are you in 4 months? Exactly where you are today.

What if you made 3 cold calls per day for whatever service? What if spent 4 months learning how to talk to china and manufacturer/distribute products.

And then 4 months in the future, you're exactly where you are now (if it fails)...except you have the skills.

Read through my past posts:
1. The Values.
2. The float forward into the future thing.
3. Talking to target market...3 people per day.

What does your future tell you? And what specific skillset will be worth learning?

 

[Ika]

For how many months or years, specifically have you not been pursuing anything?

Let's say it's since you joined in May...4 months (looked at your profile to find your join date...Love Golden, CO btw!).

The question is why are you not committing to one idea?

It's because you don't want to waste time walking down the wrong path....right?

I mentioned this in a previous post, if you could develop the skills of building a business, you have the skill forever. I spent six months coding a social network for dead people. After 6 months, nobody signed up.

Guess what...I can now code a website (landing page/email opt in/etc.) in less than a day if I want to get a website up and running.

So over those 6 months, I developed a skill that lasts me forever.

So let's say you don't commit to one for 4 more months. You'll be sitting here, reading these threads, taking down more notes, doing what you do, and where are you in 4 months? Exactly where you are today.

What if you made 3 cold calls per day for whatever service? What if spent 4 months learning how to talk to china and manufacturer/distribute products.

And then 4 months in the future, you're exactly where you are now (if it fails)...except you have the skills.

Read through my past posts:
1. The Values.
2. The float forward into the future thing.
3. Talking to target market...3 people per day.

What does your future tell you? And what specific skillset will be worth learning?

This is really good advice!

Just to add a recent example from this forum:

@Vilux just started selling websites.
He does not know how to design or create a website.

He can tell if a website is bad or good though.
So he cold called every business behind the bad looking websites.

In under a month he sold multiple websites and makes good money. He has a running business, processes and great client relationships.

(Full Story in his Gold Progress Thread)



If you were to sell anything for the next four month, and even if you didn't sell a single thing, where would you be in life?

Not in the same place you are right now.



(That doesn't mean you have to start selling. It just means you should do anything to get started. And if you don't have a skill, just sell)

 

[gatorgus]

For how many months or years, specifically have you not been pursuing anything?

Let's say it's since you joined in May...4 months (looked at your profile to find your join date...Love Golden, CO btw!).

The question is why are you not committing to one idea?

It's because you don't want to waste time walking down the wrong path....right?

I mentioned this in a previous post, if you could develop the skills of building a business, you have the skill forever. I spent six months coding a social network for dead people. After 6 months, nobody signed up.

Guess what...I can now code a website (landing page/email opt in/etc.) in less than a day if I want to get a website up and running.

So over those 6 months, I developed a skill that lasts me forever.

So let's say you don't commit to one for 4 more months. You'll be sitting here, reading these threads, taking down more notes, doing what you do, and where are you in 4 months? Exactly where you are today.

What if you made 3 cold calls per day for whatever service? What if spent 4 months learning how to talk to china and manufacturer/distribute products.

And then 4 months in the future, you're exactly where you are now (if it fails)...except you have the skills.

Read through my past posts:
1. The Values.
2. The float forward into the future thing.
3. Talking to target market...3 people per day.

What does your future tell you? And what specific skillset will be worth learning?

Thanks for the feedback. As it turns out, I have been busy building a website for my wife's business lately, as well as talking with a friend with experience importing from China. I'm not sure that's what I want to do, but I'm learning about it. I've also been self-educating on a couple other potential opportunities. I'm always looking for more people to reach out to. I like the cold calling idea; I haven't been that aggressive so far as I've been more in learning mode. I get your point about just sitting around taking notes, and although capturing ideas is important I know I've got to do more than that.

 

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[baljitlewis]

Here is where I'm at

• started a south asian ethnic themed clothing line a couple years ago, still haven't sold to anyone I don't know. since re-joining this forum I've taken steps to distribute these to some influencers on IG, get my online store in order (upgraded from bigcartel to shopify and .com domain). I don't have alot of faith in this going anywhere
• last year around fall I was paying for a subscription course type of site and one of the things they had on there was an "App Profit System" where you looked at successful apps, and then tried to improve them by looking at poor reviews. My "productivity" app is still under development by a freelancer in India. However I realize it lacks a lot of the things the parent app had going for it in the first place, and it's still super buggy, and I think I was money chasing anyway. I'll see this through but also don't have faith in it.
• I'm an engineer (although I don't really feel like one everyday, they've turned us all into Microsoft Office Jockeys) and have been doing research in this one area that my company deals with, trying to find a need. But it seems so technical and hard to do.
• I did the "post on Craiglist" (actually kijiji cause I'm in Canada) to validate an idea and got a couple bites for another idea that exists in other cities, but not my own. But got discouraged because I saw other similar sites doing what I was trying
• I contacted a couple businesses in this one niche after reading ICK's thread and reading about "The Foundation", but kind of gave up on that too
• I'm trying not to waste days, so I try to at least revisit TMF and Unscripted and have been working on Code Academy/Lex's 15 day challenge. But tbh, I'm pretty sure it's just action faking without an end in mind.

 

[AndrewNC]

without an end in mind.

This.

This is the problem. You have no clearly-defined purpose.

The purpose is the Vision/Goals/Outcome you have at the top of the pyramid.


This pyramid is something I made a few years ago based on the Neurological Levels of Transformation (used for aligning yourself with a specific vision of the future or a purpose).

I'll begin with a story of someone I know with a clearly-defined purpose.

In the spring of 2016, I met this girl named Alaina. Alaina is a die-hard vegan.

By day, Alaina was a teacher at one of the schools in Denver, Colorado.

Nights and weekends were spent doing Animal Rights Activism through a non-profit organization she is part of (Direct Action Everywhere).

WHY. WHAT. HOW.

• What do they do? They change the world for animals. They make changes in systems (education, businesses, government)
• How do they do it? Through non-violent protests and activism events (handing out flyers in front of concerts, protesting outside butcher shops, charging the stage at presidential campaign rallies holding banners and almost getting shot by secret service agents).
• WHY do they do it? In her heart, she is filled with compassion for animals, she believes that animals are living beings just like us, and they don't have the voice to speak for themselves.

There is a famous book and a Tedx talk called Start with Why.

WHY do you do what you do? From a sales and marketing standpoint - this will do wonders for you when it comes to that time...but that's not the reasoning for it now.

With Alaina and her Animal Rights activism - her why is so powerful (just like the rest of the members of that community), that people literally go out and get arrested for charging the stage at presidential campaign rallies, run onto the fields at major league baseball games, break into places where chickens are raised for food - and they are glad to get arrested...

Because their purpose is to save the lives of animals.

Guess what? They won't stop at anything until they fulfill their purpose.

Granted, she is not in the business of making money, so take that aside for a second (we'll get back to that). But in the non-profit world, what if an organization comes across to recruit her full time to help save sex slaves in Africa? Will she jump ship and give up on her purpose?

She would if she had an ill-defined purpose.

But her purpose is to save the lives of animals because she has compassion for helping animals that can't speak for themselves. So she'll say to them "No thanks, it sounds like a great opportunity and I'm glad you're doing what you're doing...but my purpose is over here."

She can't waste her energy on anything outside of what her purpose is.

So while your purpose might be to make money for yourself and to start a business (in the general sense)...that is like her having her purpose to "Be a non-profit worker that helps make changes in the world."

It's good at heart, but it's ill-defined and leaves room to stray away from it

Does this make sense?

Back to the business world...

The other day I was exchanging emails with a friend of mine. I met her through this forum back in 2013-2014 and she's been talking about wanting to start a business and travel.

Taking that ill-defined purpose, that is like the hundreds of non-profits Alaina could have joined...

She sold widgets on ebay, she sold this, she sold that, she jumped around to many different things that could fulfill her purpose of making money so she can travel.

Take a bodybuilder for example - he or she will have to dedicate months to years on end before they see the noticeable results. Same is true with your business...you'll have to put energy into one thing before you see the noticeable results build up. If they lifted weights once, and then decided to be a marathon runner the next day, do yoga the next...they are all over the place and no energy is being built up in one well-defined purpose.

And this is why you have been failing in the past...the purpose is ill-defined.

Reread your post for a moment---can you see how immediately apparent is that your focus and energy has been all over the place and the amount of energy you put into one of those things hasn't built up past that threshold level of seeing the noticeable results (maybe 2 months for the body builder).

So what's the solution for you?

Shift your focus away from the general (business/money/business) and drill down to the specific, outward-focused purpose you are solving. It doesn't have to be your passion.

For example, there is one thing I'm working on now, which I have almost zero emotional charge when it comes to working on it. I don't get excited, I don't dream about it, and quite frankly - I completely forget about it as as soon as I go away from it. I'm co-authoring one of my books on a women named Alyssa who is into natural plants, healthy eating, and waking people up from social conditioning.

What is my purpose for my books?

I help people break free from a life they feel stuck in; so they too can live the life of their dreams.

I don't have to think about it, I just say it and it flows out of me. First thing in the morning, two or three times a week, I open up my email and I start typing to Alyssa on a topic I'm knowledgable about in terms of her mission of getting the book out there. Her purpose of the book is to wake people up to the evils of the food industry and the way society/government/lobbyists destroy people's health with the foods they put out into the world.

That's her purpose...

Do you see her going out and writing romance novels because some other person is getting famous and having success doing that? No, her purpose (what) is not to write a book - her purpose is to wake people up to the evils of the food industry and the way society/government/lobbyists destroy people's health with the foods they put out into the world.

Her why comes from the heart. She feels that she needs to help improve the world's health because she feels bad for people who can't see these things for themselves.

How does she do it? What is her "business idea"?

Honestly, how she does it doesn't even matter to her. Why she does it is where she begins. What she does is what really matters to others. How she does it is just a delivery method of something that is much more important.

Hell, she could host seminars, she could start a YouTube channel, she could film a documentary, she could run for political office for that matter.

WHY. WHAT. HOW.

How you build your business comes last. Based on your words, I see a lot of emphasis on that part, where you can really begin now to drill down into your what and why.

• What change do you want to make in the world.
• Why do you want to make those changes? Does your why come from the heart?

Gauging from where you are now, I see you are just getting started with your first business that you're about to start building up really nicely...that's where I was in 2013-2014.

In that timeframe, I built an iOS digital magazine publishing company. It made money, I hated working on it, I didn't feel motivated to do it, my roommates and accountability group forced me to push forward each week, but it still fulfilled my goals.

• Why - I wanted to quit my job and make passive income so I could travel. I found an easy strategy to follow and it would be easy money.
• What - Provided pictures and content to millions of people.
• How - Digital magazine apps.

The problem I faced with this business is that my why was insufficient.

I built the apps, I got the goal, I traveled, passive income, and all that good stuff...but once I achieved that outcome, I lost any drive to really care about it. My why was not in the right place. The what I did - the product could have definitely been a lot better, and my how - that was just kind of the result of the other two.

If my why was stronger, I would have built the best quality and most successful magazine publishing company on the planet. If my why was as strong as Alaina's is for Animal Rights Activism; I would have stopped at nothing to fulfill my purpose to deliver the best quality content and advertisements to the millions of readers I've acquired over the years.

My why wasn't there - so...F*ck it.

And it was reflected in my work.

Where I'm at now: I'm currently involved in two different things.

1. Over the next year, I'm spending a few hours each morning writing books on topics that touch base with my why.

What I do. I help people break free from the life they feel stuck in; so they too can live the life of their dreams.
How I do it - I write books on various topic areas, create video training programs for the advanced skills, and offer coaching (through myself or my co-authors depending on the area) to offer mastery of the subject.

1. Business/Entrepreneurship (Published)
2. Happiness/Emotional Balance (Published)
3. Relationships
4. Healthy Eating
5. Motivation/Fitness
6. Law of Attraction/Spirituality/Etc.

Why do I do it?

It started off because I wanted recognition, money, and fame. Ego-driven, selfish desires. When I did things this way, there was too much ego getting in the way of the content I put out, and it cut off the flow...

Then, the focus of why I did it was to help other people. Take this post for example - you are struggling to start your business and in the past, I would have wrote this with the intent of helping you start your business. My purpose was to make sure you start your business. I Wanted to break people free from the life they feel stuck in; so they too could live the life of their dreams...but that's my what, not my why.

The problem this led to is attachment to the outcome...

If you didn't take action on this, I would have felt upset and that I wasted my time.

Now, with the purpose behind this post I'm writing....or the post behind the emails I send to Alyssa for the health book...it just flows out of me. I don't have any exciting passion-filled emotion behind it, I don't care if you take action on it or not, and I don't care if it leads to me writing a best-selling book or GOLD thread on this forum helping people find business ideas...

You'll reach a point when you navigate through your own selfish desires, your desire to help other people, or the desire to help the market - expecting something in return...and the work you do just flows.

So why do I do the books and programs and everything? What is my why?

Honestly, I can't logically explain it or pinpoint any emotion behind it...it is just something that needs to get done...

So I open up my computer, I get to work, and I just do it.

Just like Alaina with the animal rights things....she doesn't rely on her emotions to drive her to do it...she just does it because it needs to be done. The emotions she feels are just an amplifier....

Animals need to be saved...
Businesses that help the world need to be started through entrepreneurs finding their product or service...
Dogs need leashes...

What purpose are you serving for the world?
How do you do it?
Why do you do it?

Once you have that...you can use the following chart below to align with the rest.

 

[baljitlewis]

@AndrewNC I've decided to focus on the unfinished app. After it's uploaded to the AppStore, I'll see how it performs before starting something new or switching lanes again. I need to get one project under my belt, failure or not, before being polygamous with business ideas.

 

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[TheSponge]

I just wanted to say thank you for creating this thread. Prior to reading this thread, I had tried to start multiple businesses. I tried to do career coaching for introverts, career coaching for ambitious millennials, admissions and financial aid coaching for college bound high school seniors, productivity advice, and most recently content marketing.

As you can see, I was constantly hopping from idea to idea because my WHY was messed up. Here are the top five things I value that I want in whatever business I choose:

1. I want to be able to set my own hours (important because I have young children)
2. I want to be able to able to stay at home with my children (so I cannot be going into an office or physical store everyday, can't take a lot of in-person meetings)
3. I want to be able to conduct the majority of my business online over the computer
4. I want to be able to earn money as I create new content rather than wait for a finished product (cause waiting would take me forever due to constant family distractions)
5. I want to be able to able to control how much I earn from that business as much as I can (so I don't want to be depending on the cuts of profits others are willing to give me like in partnerships or affiliate marketing, at least not as my main source of income)

At the time that I found this thread, I could literally feel pressure and tightness in my chest because I was so frustrated with not being able to settle on any one idea. My physical health was literally suffering because starting a business was the hardest thing I had ever done in my life (yes even harder than having children).

And I was frustrated because everything else I tried to achieve in life had come so easily to me. I couldn't understand why all of a sudden I felt like I had lost focus and mental clarity.

I was ready to throw in the towel and get a "real job" when I went through the exercises you listed here, particularly the one about imagining yourself several months from now. I am the logical type as well so it took me a few times to get this right. I actually looked back as well as forward and found a couple of common themes.

One was in psychology. I love psychology. I have undergrad and grad degrees in it and I read about it every chance I get. I read about it late at night, first thing on Saturday mornings, and often cite it in everyday conversations.

I never considered anything for an online business in this area because I assumed I wasn't qualified due to lack of credentials. I am not a licensed practitioner. So I figured I should let it go.

But in my "future vision" I saw myself combining two skills that I have: my knack for psychology and my ability to create content (particularly written content).

In the last nine months that I have been trying to start my latest business, time and time again, questions came up to me or other people on online platforms about not just how to create persuasive content but why it works. People were taking templates from others and trying to apply them to their businesses and target audiences, only to find that they didn't work.

They didn't know why, but I did. I started testing out ways to combine these skills by helping people out for free in Facebook groups. I'd help them with social media posts, sales pages, blogging strategy, anything really that involved trying to make someone take a certain action online. And people were appreciative and even asked for my rates!

So I have decided to pursue a business with the flagship product/service being an online membership site. My WHY is no longer to make money and to make my own schedule.

My WHY is now to show people how to leverage psychology to gain attention and sales for their content, products, and services. I want to help people I know deliver value as opposed to people who are selling garbage. I hope my copy will be good enough to weed the scammers out.

My WHAT will be content that explains the how and why behind online marketing strategies and content creation as it relates to psychology and human behavior. I'll go into the sexy topics like sales pages and funnels but also a lot of people don't know why exactly a lead magnet is even so effective so they fumble around creating the wrong ones.

My HOW plans to be the membership site though I am flexible in this area as long as it can be delivered online and preferable asynchronously at least 75% of the time. I figure I can start my membership site and let my buyers know that its new but that is to their benefit because they can essentially build their own product. They can tell me what they want and I will create it for them. So they always get value out of the subscription. I'll start with a few things then start taking suggestions.

This is a major breakthrough for me because I just couldn't understand why I kept failing. So I just wanted to say thanks! I literally feel a weight lifted off of my chest.

If you have any feedback or anything I should know, before going too far down this road, I would welcome it. I won't have a heart attack thanks to you! Right now, I am trying to find the best way to market this membership site. I have so far been building up my credibility and authority through forums and groups but I need to look more into other free tactics. I don't have an ad budget at the moment.

 

[focusedlife]

Just wanna point out how fire this thread is.

Love the analogies.

Love the reframe.

Definitely found it EXTREMELY useful for putting somethings I've pondered into perspective.

Thank you.

 

[Willing2Learn]

So eventually I self-educated in psychology and human behavior and created a video course breaking down every aspect about why we procrastinate, and deconstructed the solution to help fix the problem in people's lives.

That's excellent.

Can you recommend any good psychology books? I found a couple on Amazon I'm thinking about purchasing, but I was wondering if you could recommend a good one you may have read?

These are the two on Amazon that stand out to me because of their titles and reviews:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1537220454/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PR814K0/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

 

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[AndrewNC]

That's excellent.

Can you recommend any good psychology books? I found a couple on Amazon I'm thinking about purchasing, but I was wondering if you could recommend a good one you may have read?

These are the two on Amazon that stand out to me because of their titles and reviews:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/1537220454/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PR814K0/?tag=tff-amazonparser-20

I didn't really get any deeper-benefits from reading books.

• NLP Practitioner Training
• NLP Master Practitioner Training
• Self-Study in Various Emotional Release Techniques
• Hypnosis Training
• Psychic/Law of Attraction/Spirituality Trainings

The NLP training got me started, but it wasn't until I've been practicing the actual tools of transformation for years before some of the logical lessons sunk in at a deeper level.

 

[Willing2Learn]

The Law of Attraction leaves a bad taste in my mouth. I wasted about seven years of my life on that stuff. I bought the Abraham-Hicks books, read them several times, listened to the CD Getting into the Vortex, watched the seminars on YouTube, and something just didn't sit right with me with all of that stuff.

I was always told, reading is not enough. You have to APPLY what you read. And believe me, when it came to the LOA stuff, I APPLIED IT. NONE of it worked. Having studied the books and all of the information that was available, I found so many contradictions in Abraham-Hicks' teachings. As MJ DeMarco mentioned in his books, the businesses and marketers know that people are attracted to events and instant gratification, and I feel like the LOA was just one big way to make money doing just that.

If you actually benefited from all of the LOA and Spiritual stuff, good for you man. I applaud you. But I really do believe a lot of that stuff is just a bunch of hogwash, and doesn't do anything to change people's lives.

Psychology, I believe in, because it's there. It's physical. It's real. How a person thinks and behaves is a direct result of the experiences they've had in life.