Spent my 20s in the slow lane, want to go to the fast lane, but don't have a business idea

[dreamvendor]

Hi, just started reading the MFL book, really enjoying it.
I wanted to start an online education business back in my early twenties but found it very stressful and hard to lift off as it relied on coding skills I didn't have. I spent the last 10 years climbing up the slow-lane ladder. I earned and saved a bit of money but it's not enough to buy a house or retire early at all. I used to have a really good business idea but then abandoned it and now it's been taken (which is a good thing really). Now I have a lot more experience, I'm a lot more mature.
My problem is that I don't have an idea. Not sure even where to start. My current plan is to work and build a business alongside it because I can do most of my job in under 4 hours a day. Will be spending a lot of time looking for good ideas, so will appreciate any pointers and advice.
Thank you @MJ DeMarco for the book and this forum!
Thanks all!

 

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[Private Witt]

Welcome, once you have finished MFL, make sure you read Unscripted right away. I need to read both again but Unscripted hit me hard as I was hard core scripted at birth and growing up in the shadow of a big city in Illinois.

While short on the creative side, which could be a little rough, you have some great things going on with some cash and a job under 4 hours a day. Bootstrapping with a job is the way to go for so many and you will have that but not the time and life energy drain of a FT bootstrap job. Stick around and grow and the ideas should come, good luck!

 

[Arithen]

Welcome!

If you're stuck on ideas, instead of trying to come up with a product first, try to find a target market first.

- People allergic to nuts
- Parents with little time to make homemade meals
- People who do Yoga
- 3D printing hobbyists
- People who don't like smelling up the bathroom

Pretty much anything can be a target market, and niching down (narrowing the size of the target market to a very specific group within a target market) can lead you to easier idea creation.

You now have a focal point from which you can draw creative ideas from. Next, join all their most common gathering points; Reddit, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram. Sometimes, a target market will gather in a main social place than another. If you're targeting Yoga people, take a yoga class and ASK them what are some good products to get started with yoga. Ask them what they think those products can improve on. Your goal is to find the pain points, the complaints, the problems that target market is facing right now.

Let's say a 3D printing hobbyist's common problem is filament waste on failed prints where the printer keeps printing despite the print noodling out of control because the printer doesn't know it's failing. That's a pain point. What can you do to fix that? Well, you could develop a system that recognizes a print is failing and shuts off the machine. There's one idea.

Similarly, a Yoga person might be fed up cleaning their yoga mat in the bathtub after it's been used every day for a month. Pain point! Find a way to make a yoga mat cleaner for them.

When I first look at a target market, I find it's easy to come up with ideas. Next is just executing on them. Testing your idea with the people of the market, adjust, refine, and test again until you can jump to sales

 

[Edgar King]

Hi, just started reading the MFL book, really enjoying it.
I wanted to start an online education business back in my early twenties but found it very stressful and hard to lift off as it relied on coding skills I didn't have. I spent the last 10 years climbing up the slow-lane ladder. I earned and saved a bit of money but it's not enough to buy a house or retire early at all. I used to have a really good business idea but then abandoned it and now it's been taken (which is a good thing really). Now I have a lot more experience, I'm a lot more mature.
My problem is that I don't have an idea. Not sure even where to start. My current plan is to work and build a business alongside it because I can do most of my job in under 4 hours a day. Will be spending a lot of time looking for good ideas, so will appreciate any pointers and advice.
Thanks all!

Hey Dream,

This might help to find a problem that can later become your business solution -

EXECUTION - How I Found And Solved A Problem I Cared About (Probably...)

Tl;DR Just start helping people in a niche. And try to iterate to a productcracy (regardless of the means). A productcracy is one in which people voluntarily talk about your product positively with others. It all started on day 140 of my 150 execution challenge. "I've wasted so much...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

 

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[dreamvendor]

Welcome, once you have finished MFL, make sure you read Unscripted right away. I need to read both again but Unscripted hit me hard as I was hard core scripted at birth and growing up in the shadow of a big city in Illinois.

While short on the creative side, which could be a little rough, you have some great things going on with some cash and a job under 4 hours a day. Bootstrapping with a job is the way to go for so many and you will have that but not the time and life energy drain of a FT bootstrap job. Stick around and grow and the ideas should come, good luck!

Welcome!

If you're stuck on ideas, instead of trying to come up with a product first, try to find a target market first.

- People allergic to nuts
- Parents with little time to make homemade meals
- People who do Yoga
- 3D printing hobbyists
- People who don't like smelling up the bathroom

Pretty much anything can be a target market, and niching down (narrowing the size of the target market to a very specific group within a target market) can lead you to easier idea creation.

You now have a focal point from which you can draw creative ideas from. Next, join all their most common gathering points; Reddit, Facebook, Youtube, Instagram. Sometimes, a target market will gather in a main social place than another. If you're targeting Yoga people, take a yoga class and ASK them what are some good products to get started with yoga. Ask them what they think those products can improve on. Your goal is to find the pain points, the complaints, the problems that target market is facing right now.

Let's say a 3D printing hobbyist's common problem is filament waste on failed prints where the printer keeps printing despite the print noodling out of control because the printer doesn't know it's failing. That's a pain point. What can you do to fix that? Well, you could develop a system that recognizes a print is failing and shuts off the machine. There's one idea.

Similarly, a Yoga person might be fed up cleaning their yoga mat in the bathtub after it's been used every day for a month. Pain point! Find a way to make a yoga mat cleaner for them.

When I first look at a target market, I find it's easy to come up with ideas. Next is just executing on them. Testing your idea with the people of the market, adjust, refine, and test again until you can jump to sales

Hey Dream,

This might help to find a problem that can later become your business solution -

EXECUTION - How I Found And Solved A Problem I Cared About (Probably...)

Tl;DR Just start helping people in a niche. And try to iterate to a productcracy (regardless of the means). A productcracy is one in which people voluntarily talk about your product positively with others. It all started on day 140 of my 150 execution challenge. "I've wasted so much...

www.thefastlaneforum.com

Hi all, I just wanted to say thank you for your replies, I've gone and read Unscripted and I must say I've got a real oil change. I can see problems! At the moment no certain winners and not that many, but still:
1. I was trying to find a dentist locally but in order to book one you have to ring them, and they are all overbooked, no appointment for well over three months. So I came up with two ideas: to create a website where you can book an appointment online in any dentistry (could be a lead generator as well) or even just open a new dentistry as clearly there is a demand for them where I live. I've found a website where you could look for appointments but it didn't list all the dentists and wasn't any good. Improvement opportunity!
2. I realised that many apps, even as good as Slack, have inconveniences like you can't add all the people to the another channel apart from manual add. So someone created an app that helps you to do that! Although of course that is dependent on Slack.
3. My neighbour crashed her car and had to spend a week in the insurance limbo, fighting over the case which was hell for her. Can this be done better? Sure!
Every day I see more and more problems and definitely starting to realise that if you look deep enough there are everywhere, and even solving a small problem for many people is still very valuable.