How do you generate ideas?

[raylech1986.it]

ideas are like rough dimonds.
Sure they have some value, but until you cut them, polish them and sell them, they are basically rocks like any other rock.

Nice!

 

[raylech1986.it]

I don't try to come up with ideas. I try to help people. Some will say I sound like a stuck record, but there's a reason I keep bringing this up.

Challenge yourself to help 3 people each day instead of have 10 ideas a day.

Why? Business is about adding value, and getting paid. Helping people = Adding value. Having ideas is not adding value.

Preach!

 

[JuniorSpeck]

Just think of good ideas, lol.
For me, good ideas come when I sweep around and then immediately write whatever comes up, and by immediately I mean it, immediately.

Good ideas are like dreams, they can provide insight but can be quickly forgotten if you absolutely make sure to remember what you were thinking of.

 

[Johnny boy]

Audiobook
+
Repetitive physical task (white noise for the brain)
=
Idea machine

It can be walking, or some sort of labor. But anyone here can go walking.

 

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[GuestUser4aMPs1]

@ZCP talked about this @ the summit. Maybe he'd pitch in?

 

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[df1992]

I have so many ideas, ideas, ideas...it's almost a burden. Because the choice becomes much harder.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. It's execution that counts. When it comes to ideas where I think: "Wow, there's real value to be created", they come from consumer complaints.

Ideas are all around you every day. The important thing you have to teach yourself is awareness. My best source of ideas was one of my ex-girlfriends. She was so often frustrated with the products she used and vented about it. All I had to do was listen.

BTW: A lot of people think they aren't creative. But they are. When I taught business, I sent teams of four outside for an hour, and they had to come back with 20 business ideas. "Impossible", they said. Oh, it is possible. But you have to kill your inner censor. We put 80 ideas on the blackboard and then voted for the best ones. Carl Barks once said: "What made me great was a big garbage bin". Same goes for ideas. Create a lot, and throw a lot of them away.

Love this, what's your process for validation? I have really become aware that I am talking myself out of EVERY idea I have, it's like I'm waiting for "the one"...

I do have a current concept I'm working on which I am in the process of testing (via surveys, landing pages etc.) but I'm not even sure I know what result I'm looking for...

 

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[themarkboogie]

I was going to be silly and say 'Ok, I am looking around my desk and there is a lamp and a pair of scissors therefore... '

And then I thought I would Google scissors you can use in the dark and hey presto

Brewer Sewing - LED Light Up Scissors

LED Light Up Scissors

www.brewersewing.com

There are no prices so perhaps they have been discontinued as no real market, but someone gave it a good bash.

Dan

Lol, I love it.

 

[kpoa]

Hi Everyone,

I'm on a mission to become an idea machine and I'm challenging myself to come up with 10 ideas everyday. I'm curious to see how you might come up with ideas.

Here's how I do it so far:

• Idea sex: mix two random products together = ?'s
• Problem based: Either through my own problems, or asking questions to friends and families about their problems
• "Wouldn't it be great if....".... finish the sentence with what product or service you think would be great
• Imagining the future: What do you think the future will look like and what products and services will need to be around to support it
• Reverse imagination: What things do we use/or do that people will look back on in 10 years time and think, "wow, that was stupid" (such as reading maps!)
• Plus just general lists like:
  • Ideas for a podcast
  • Things that annoy me
  • Things that would make me laugh
  • Ideas for TV shows or movies

My aim is to build a strong idea muscle through working it out everyday that I will find an idea that I'll be confident enough to being me to the fastlane.

How do you come up with ideas?

Just reading this, I know its been a while since you've posted. Just curious on your progress and what experiences have you had with this?

 

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[Madd]

You should read J. Altucher's article again, everything is there already.

Could you please give us the link to this article?

 

[drahz]

There is some solid advice in this article, but man was it long.

My key takeaways are:

- Exercise your brain by coming up with ideas, writing them down, then exploring them at a later time.
- Most ideas are useless and can be anything, even ideas on how to surprise someone
- Failing quickly is more important than executing quickly (boy is that true...)

What I dont agree with is the way he tries to portray faillure.
Remove the word "fail" from your vocabulary? Everything we do in life is a success?
Then he says: "Most things I try to do don’t work out as I planned", yea thats true, its also true that success without failing doesnt exist.
Not only does it preceed success, it also defines success the way that success defines failing.
If one person ultimately succeeds in some grand plan, failing each step of the way, you could argue that because it all ended well, each of these fails are actually successes in a way.
What if the grand plan doesnt work out?
What if you get other people hurt while trying to acheive something? Fail or success? Who`s point of view counts?
What if you thought it was a good idea to hike up a mountain then get yourself lost and die? Isnt that a collosal faillure?

Point is, dont remove the word "fail" from your vocabulary, this is a stupid advice.

I found this article about a year ago and I actually stick to the routine of bringing ideas daily even to the point of forcing myself to bring something to fullfil those 10 ideas.

I was doing that for 6 months and after that I stopped because I did not see a real benefit. All of the ideas I generated was just ideas, most of them very bad, some of them unreal.

Anyway, ideas are still just ideas and they will not research the market for you or bring you real needs you can solve. I think being an "observation machine" or "market research machine" might work better for bringing a real business.

And one think I learned about the author is that you have to take everything he says or write about with a grain of salt. He is a phenomenal marketer and he is shamelessly selling anything to anyone all the time. If you subscribe to his mailing list you will see all the market glitches, new apple business which is about to disrupt everything, one time a life crypto opportunities, and much more.

 

[Ayobami23]

You should read J. Altucher's article again, everything is there already.

Can you post the link of the j altucher articles please

 

[Ayobami23]

Hi Everyone,

I'm on a mission to become an idea machine and I'm challenging myself to come up with 10 ideas everyday. I'm curious to see how you might come up with ideas.

Here's how I do it so far:

• Idea sex: mix two random products together = ?'s
• Problem based: Either through my own problems, or asking questions to friends and families about their problems
• "Wouldn't it be great if....".... finish the sentence with what product or service you think would be great
• Imagining the future: What do you think the future will look like and what products and services will need to be around to support it
• Reverse imagination: What things do we use/or do that people will look back on in 10 years time and think, "wow, that was stupid" (such as reading maps!)
• Plus just general lists like:
  • Ideas for a podcast
  • Things that annoy me
  • Things that would make me laugh
  • Ideas for TV shows or movies

My aim is to build a strong idea muscle through working it out everyday that I will find an idea that I'll be confident enough to being me to the fastlane.

How do you come up with ideas?

Well to me improving an existing products or services makes the fast lane easier.
Each ideas you that comes to your mind,never forget to interact with the market to know if they love your idea to avoid spending time on the idea the market doesn't want .

 

[drahz]

Can you post the link of the j altucher articles please

Read the thread, I shared the link here already.

 

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[Madd]

It’s very interesting that the article seems not to be the recommend first step. More the second after having identified a problem. But than not random ideas (how to write a blog …), but more problem specific .

 

[raylech1986.it]

Hi Everyone,

I'm on a mission to become an idea machine and I'm challenging myself to come up with 10 ideas everyday. I'm curious to see how you might come up with ideas.

Here's how I do it so far:

• Idea sex: mix two random products together = ?'s
• Problem based: Either through my own problems, or asking questions to friends and families about their problems
• "Wouldn't it be great if....".... finish the sentence with what product or service you think would be great
• Imagining the future: What do you think the future will look like and what products and services will need to be around to support it
• Reverse imagination: What things do we use/or do that people will look back on in 10 years time and think, "wow, that was stupid" (such as reading maps!)
• Plus just general lists like:
  • Ideas for a podcast
  • Things that annoy me
  • Things that would make me laugh
  • Ideas for TV shows or movies

My aim is to build a strong idea muscle through working it out everyday that I will find an idea that I'll be confident enough to being me to the fastlane.

How do you come up with ideas?

Scratching your own itch.

Ie. I love to eat the “Big Papa” pickles but I freaking can’t stand accidently squeezing the pickle too hard and spraying pickle juice all over me.

It’s a pain in the butt to eat a pickle at work, movie theatres, football games etc.

If I could use some gizmo to hold it and prevent juice spillage. That would be noyce!!!

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Scratching your own itch.

Ie. I love to eat the “Big Papa” pickles but I freaking can’t stand accidently squeezing the pickle too hard and spraying pickle juice all over me.

It’s a pain in the butt to eat a pickle at work, movie theatres, football games etc.

If I could use some gizmo to hold it and prevent juice spillage. That would be noyce!!!

You should try “Bob’s Pickle Pops.” They’re great and would solve this

 

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[tienti]

For me, I usually try to be a little more present throughout my day. I try to notice things that could be more efficient or things/services that annoy me. I also try and listen to others when hearing complaints from them.

 

[WJK]

Just think of good ideas, lol.
For me, good ideas come when I sweep around and then immediately write whatever comes up, and by immediately I mean it, immediately.

Good ideas are like dreams, they can provide insight but can be quickly forgotten if you absolutely make sure to remember what you were thinking of.

I must write them down before they get lost in the business of my day.

 

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[Bence Ur]

"How do you generate ideas?"

These are online business ideas, for example check out the largest marketplaces:

Online Businesses For Sale - Ecommerce, SaaS, Affiliate, & More

Browse profitable online businesses and websites for sale that have been thoroughly vetted on the largest curated marketplace at Empire Flippers.

empireflippers.com

https://feinternational.com/buy-a-website/

You can't see the exact web addresses of the businesses for sale, however these two marketplaces are the largest and these are curated listings. It means that the marketplace (Empire Flippers or FE International) validates these businesses: revenue, traffic sources etc.). So these are real, successful businesses. I mentioned these two sites because they are the two largest, curated marketplaces.

You can browse the listings and open them to read more about a business for sale. Then you can get some ideas like what business model to pursue, what niches to target, what is the revenue potential etc.

So the real value of these resources is that these are real, validated businesses and you can see the niche and revenue. So this is not some theoretical lists of "best niches" or "best business models", but actual successful businesses.