Starting a business

Here are some thoughts on how to create a business:

  • Ideally pick something you have some preexisting knowledge, competence or interest in
  • Go where the money is (could be B2B or wealthy B2C)
  • What do people pay for? Examples – pleasure, convenience, power (money, health etc)
  • Try not to pick a dying market – e.g. dvds
  • People pay more for solving an urgent pain or if they create their identity around that market (i.e. pets)
  • They trust you more if you’re speaking/catering only to them (i.e. a restaurant serving one food vs trying to do everything)
  • What’s an urgent pain in the industry/business you’re targeting? Interview people to understand
  • How can you help solve that problem. Is your solution effective?
  • Don’t reinvent the wheel – copy other businesses
  • Services are generally easiest to start with. You can always offer courses or software later
  • Once you’ve got a hypothesis/general direction, it becomes a numbers game – how many relationships can you build within that industry
  • Contact the people who can afford the money you want to charge
  • Lead with value – offer to help with something or interview them. Play the long game. Don’t try to marry them on the first date
  • X amount of cold calls, X amount of emails, X amount of dms per day or X amount of ads
  • At the same time, post every day on the most trafficked target customer social media about what you’re doing, pains you’re solving and results you’re getting
  • Productise your service so you can charge a set amount, meet their expectations and create systems/processes
  • Take action. Find what works. Rinse and repeat