How to Build an Online Business

Chapter 6How to come up with a great business idea

Ideas alone won’t make you rich but the correct execution of an idea just might. So where do great business ideas come from? And where and who can you turn to for inspiration? Funnily enough, sometimes the person with the best idea may not be the best person to bring that product to market. In fact, it’s often the very people who come up with the idea who shouldn’t bring the idea to market.

Deals Direct co-founder Paul Greenberg expands on this paradox.

Often, it’s a person who has worked in one job all their life who comes up with a brilliant invention. They may work on a production line and see the same problem occurring on the conveyor belt day after day. They think to themselves, ‘You know, if only someone would invent a bolt that stopped the conveyor belt doing that, then it would make this whole machine work better’. Often an idea for a new product will come from a person who has a detailed knowledge about a particular occupation. But of course, as is often the way, the people who have the idea often don’t have the ability to bring it to market, which is why so many great ideas fail to manifest. A successful enterprise often requires both the inventor and a marketer and it’s rare that someone can be both. Not impossible, but rare.

Often, the person with the idea has a personal stake in the product and has been touched deeply by the need to get that product made. Don Di Giandomenico is one such person.

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