Where do you find your ideas?

**pyrhho** · 06-13-2006 09:34 PM

Hi all,
I'm new here, and I thought it might be interesting to find out where different people find their ideas? Do you find them reading? or When you run into a problem in everyday life? Or do they just *come* to you? Or do you get ideas! Lol.

pyrhho

**akula** · 06-13-2006 09:47 PM

good question.

at southerncrosventures.com you'll find a lot of feeds.

these I read every morning.

these feeds are written by 100s of entrepreneurs, scientists and investors who make it their stated occupation to discover, analyse and report new ideas.

that's where I get my ideas.

**akula** · 06-13-2006 09:55 PM

Originally Posted by pyrhho

Hi all,
Or do they just *come* to you?

pyrhho

No. For some people - for novices - yes. They just come up with cool sounding things of the top of their head (i.e. oh! wouldn't it be nice if you could have electronic baseball cards!!!).

I think that's a deeply flawed way of coming up with ideas, and I make it a priority to trash these kinds of epiphanic pitches. And so does the rest of the industry.

There are two methods used to overcome the risk of coming up with ideas that everybody else thinks are stupid, except you of course.

**F360** · 06-13-2006 10:02 PM

I normally get them when something pisses me off, or I cant find something I want. In these cases I'll make/improve upon whatever it was that pissed my off - or create something to do the job I want.

You say "or do they just come to you". I would say they do, but in a very raw form. You then have to build on them, then evaluate and rebuild untill you have something good.

**youngmoneyblog** · 06-13-2006 11:32 PM

I like to observe things... like learn and watch how things word. Then I see how things can work together... and I come up with an idea of sorts.

Usually, I read a lot of blogs ands news articles about entrepreneurship/finance that helps inspire ideas

**Luke** · 06-14-2006 02:58 AM

I think everyone has just about mentioned everything I wanted to say but It might be of interest for you to know that sometimes you can find Ideas from domain owners who were unable to start or finish their projects. Keep an eye out for domain sales and see if anything interesting pops up. Recently I found a great domain on a webmaster forum for sale which has given me a cool, new project to work on.

Goodluck finding Ideas.

**janus20** · 06-14-2006 03:20 AM

Originally Posted by pyrhho

Hi all,
I'm new here, and I thought it might be interesting to find out where different people find their ideas? Do you find them reading? or When you run into a problem in everyday life? Or do they just *come* to you? Or do you get ideas! Lol.

pyrhho

Take your pick from this lot at www.unifiedtheory.org.uk

Suggest the infinite free energy water turbine for starters. Forget patents.
Keep the others in perpetual catchy-up mode. If you find this *come* to be sufficiently *interesting*, you will need to know how to control the output.

Shall I hold my breath ?

**Andreas Bard** · 06-14-2006 03:32 AM

They just pop up in my head daily he he.
I get it from daily life, surfing the web and so on.

//Andreas

**mcfara** · 06-18-2006 09:24 PM

i too get my ideas from reading - i probably read three hours a day when you combine books, magazines (entrepreneur, fast company, and inc are my fav's), feeds from blogs, and email newsletters. usually something sparks in my mind when reading about other's problems and solutions. i suppose it's different for everyone tho...

**nado** · 06-18-2006 11:18 PM

Business Ideas & How I Find Them by Nathan Waters

**NeeJam** · 06-19-2006 06:31 AM

They come in my head and then i research them, i've got a few ideas off here as well, one im implementing and will introduce this summer.

Basically the easiest way to come up with ideas is work with what you know or what you like, if your thinking i don't know anything what can i offer right now then your wrong everyone can offer something.

Then once you know the thing you like, write down everything in that area what you like about it once you've done this its ''research time'' look for everything in those areas you wrote down and then if you can get into an uptapped market aka a niche becuase you'll make the money and can get out before most of your competitors have even started, or you can stay on and most people will come to you becuase you're established and have been around for a while.

After that you just implement the ideas you've come with out of those areas and you'll start making money as long as you have traffic coming to your site.

P.S. The best ideas aren't always the best

**akula** · 06-19-2006 06:49 AM

Originally Posted by nik_b02

They come in my head and then i research them, i've got a few ideas off here as well, one im implementing and will introduce this summer.

Basically the easiest way to come up with ideas is work with what you know or what you like, if your thinking i don't know anything what can i offer right now then your wrong everyone can offer something.

Then once you know the thing you like, write down everything in that area what you like about it once you've done this its ''research time'' look for everything in those areas you wrote down and then if you can get into an uptapped market aka a niche becuase you'll make the money and can get out before most of your competitors have even started, or you can stay on and most people will come to you becuase you're established and have been around for a while.

After that you just implement the ideas you've come with out of those areas and you'll start making money as long as you have traffic coming to your site.

P.S. The best ideas aren't always the best

I think this is an extremely proficient approach to opportunity selection. Much kudos for sharing your uncommon insight.

The top two points I like best are:

1) work with what you know When the idea comes as a result of many years spent inside a particular industry - it's a much better idea because it's guaranteed to be practical, realistic and doable. It will be more than idea - it'll be an opportunity.

2) look for everything in those areas you wrote down
In the same that vcs have a criteria for what they look for - so too should entrepreneurs. The reason is simple: when you have to convince people that what you're talking about is a good idea - you much make your case by comparing your idea to another idea using a set of industry standard criteria. An idea is only a good idea when other people can agree that its a better idea than other ideas.

finally: I think that entrepreneurs come in qualities: good and bad. The good entrepreneurs are a product of good habits. With ideas - I think its a good habit to do what nick says, for a number of reasons.

**Muddy** · 06-19-2006 02:35 PM

See I was pissing in the toilet. I slipped on some pee that I missed. I decided to invent a non slip pee mat. It works great. I am already marketing to millions. I am going to to start an MLM so other people can market for me. Its worth billions.