How To Find The Best Business Ideas

Hey, capitalists. Welcome to Capitalism tv. I'm Ryan Daniel Moran and today we're going to go through how you can find your best business ideas. Entrepreneurs way overthink this. They make it way too hard. And we're going to simplify this and make this really fun. I mean, I even wore a pink shirt for you today, so come on in and join the fun.

Tim Ferriss, in the book the Four Hour Workweek talks about how when he's making a product or coming up with a business idea, he always starts with something that he wants. And the reason for that is because he knows he'll always have one customer. And he assumes that if there's one customer, him, that there will be other people who also want that thing. As a rule, I find that to be a very helpful idea. The best business ideas that I've come up with in my career didn't happen because I saw someone else was selling a lot of something. They came because I wanted something and so I created it or I wanted something. So I found the resources for people like me. That is where the best ideas come from. I invested in a company a couple of years ago. It was a travel gear company called Neatpak Bags and the founder, Hani, came up with the idea while she was traveling the world. She and her sister were using gear that started to fall apart and so they made something that was better. And as a result, it got my attention and I invested in it. Here's a clip of her sharing that story.

I started knitpack in 2015 with my husband and my sister. So this is a family business. We are a travel bag company. We specialize on durability, functionality and innovative designs targeting variety of travelers that would like to kind of have like a minimalist travel style. It's lightweight, easy access, better organization. Travel has always been a big part of my life. I'm originally from Indonesia, so my family, everybody still lives there. I go to Asia very often visiting family. And every time I go to Asia, my sister who lives in Indonesia, we have this little sisterhood bonding trips together. My dad is an entrepreneur and my sister and I had always dream about starting a business together where we can be entrepreneurs and creating something that brings us closer together. And it wasn't until 2015, early 2015, we went on a hiking trip in Bali, Indonesia. It was climbing up the tallest mountain there, the active volcano actually. And one day in the middle of a hike, my sister's backpack, the zipper broke. So as you can imagine, it's very frustrating. We had to move her stuff to different bags, it was a mess. And my sister look at me and hey, you are the engineer. Why don't you create a better bag?

Now a lot of people don't want to take the approach that Hani did or even riskier coming up with an idea that no one has done because there's this perception that it might feel fail, that you can take a risk and it won't work out. And I am here to tell you, please believe me, I wish someone had told me this 10 years ago, please believe me that the risk of failure is higher when you are copying what other people have done. So in Hani's case, there's obviously a big market for travel gear, there's a bunch of different businesses that are doing it. She decided to do something that was better than the options she currently had. That is enough of her addressing a problem and creating a solution, knowing that there's gonna be at least one customer her. There's a great story behind the business Away, which is also a travel business. And the problem that they set out to solve was simply there's no high end looking travel company that costs less than the competitors. That was all that they were looking at when they decided to go into this market. They sold $12 million their first year and in 2019 they were valued at 1.4 billion dol selling luggage, most people thought that would have been absolutely impossible, but they wanted something so they created it and other people who wanted that showed up and bought it. Those are the best ideas. The worst ideas are the ones where you say looks like so and so is making a lot of money selling travel bags. So I'm going to make a travel bag too. That's a me too approach that doesn't pan out or at the very least it has a very high failure rate. Why? Because when you're copying what other people are doing or you're copying other people's ideas, they have five years ahead of systems and customers and headway that you don't. So if you're trying to copy them, you're competing with the people who have already brought that solution to the marketplace. So the good ideas always come upon you improving on that or creating something that is a gap that you already want and solving that need. So a lot of entrepreneurs start out with I want this thing or it looks like there's a gap in the marketplace here and I'm going to create that. And then they get into defense mode and they start protecting and they start defending their empire and pursuing short term opportunities Rather than using the same aggressiveness that got them to where they are. The real secret to maintaining growth is you take a certain amount of risk to start it. And rather than slowing it down, maintaining that same level of risk tolerance to be able to grow the business. Now, lots of entrepreneurs fail at this. I recently interviewed my buddy Judson. He runs a 4 million ish dollar a year company that mostly sells on Amazon.com and he tells the story about how when he started the business, he was making things that he wanted. And then at some point it shifted and he started selling products that he thought would be really good opportunities, but they didn't work. Here's his story. Mostly we're launching things that we want and that was those other similar products that did well. Yeah. And then you went for the money.

And it sucked. Mean, like just doing more versions. Well, the, the next product, you justified it in your head. You were like, well, these are doing well, so let's just do a different one the market obviously likes. And then it's. It failed.

Yeah.

Is that right? Yeah, man, I see that so often. I don't know what the principle is there.

Yeah.

But as soon as you start doing things for the numbers and the algorithms for the data.

Things suck.

Yeah.

When you do things because you just have like this internal poll for. It always works out. And part of me thinks of it, it's just because, like something you want anyway. Numbers are a reflection of what people want, not a precursor to what people want. So some people will look at numbers and then try to sell to the numbers, but the numbers are actually a measure of people wanting other stuff. And.

What you're describing is an example of like, you wanted something, you made it, you did well. And you're like, let's go for the numbers now. And it didn't go so well.

Yeah.

My favorite thing about what Judson says about his background is when he realizes that when he's in that creative mode, when he's coming up with new ideas, it's just more fun. It's just, it's, it's lighter, it's, it feels freer, it feels expansive. That's how business should feel. It shouldn't feel, feel like this mental grind where you have to figure everything out and follow the exact process. It should feel like fun. It should feel like you're in a playground. That's how business should be done. But so many entrepreneurs are so addicted to just. It has to work, it has to work that it doesn't work. Like if you're that attached like, it has to be perfect. It has to work out exactly. So I get the result. You will fail because real value comes from that creativity that you are bringing to the business, which means things look weird and they look new. There's a reason why Tesla Cybertruck has hundreds of thousands of pre orders. Because it's a little weird, right? And the more you look at it, you're like, oh, it's not so bad. I want one. I just preordered. Elon Musk is just a genius at making things look different. You know who else is good at this? Donald Trump is good at making things look different. And I think there are plenty of people who would say he's not better, but he's different, and that's good enough. And you don't need everyone to like your stuff. You don't need a lot of people to like your stuff. You need your thing to be different enough to appeal to a small group of people. That's where really good ideas start. Now, the temptation for a lot of people is to sit and to think and try and figure out the best idea. But I was given some really good advice from one of my mentors. His name is Ajit Nawalka. I work with him regularly and he. He beats me up over this, so I need the reminder, too. But he once told me when we were sitting down during a podcast interview, we talked about where good ideas come from. And his answer really surprised me. I was in this period of my life where I was in between projects and everything in me wanted to find the next business idea, to know exactly where I was going to go, to know how, okay, I'd reached this certain level of success, but I want to go here, and I really want to figure out how to get there. And a jit's advice was that period in between, you should get bored. That boredom is necessary. It's like the space in which good ideas come from. When you don't have to think of the right idea, you naturally get impulses and sparks of creativity. But most of us drown that out with social media notifications and thinking and learning. And there's some benefit to that in the right time. But if you don't have the room for that space, if you don't have that space for the new ideas to come to life, you will never have a good business idea, and you will always be playing from behind. Here's the clip where Ajit is sharing that advice with me.

You can always work a little bit more. Our minds are so crazy as entrepreneurs and people are watching this. If you're entrepreneurs, you know it's not going to shut down. You can try everything.

It's a lifestyle.

Yeah. It's not going to shut down. So the only way for us to actually get more out of what's not going to shut down is to shut it down. You see? And it's scientifically proven, too, so it's not just me making this up. Right. When you actually don't do anything, that's the best time for an entrepreneur because your default mode of brain gets activated. There's actual science research done where they say that when you're doing the most mundane, boring things, there is a part of our brain that gets activated which is called the default mode of the brain. The default mode of the brain is also our subconscious. It takes all the data that you've been processing all day long and actually processes it. Processes it to come up with a creative solution. Right. This is why people say, oh, I get my best ideas in the shower.

Is this just entrepreneurs or is this everybody?

Everybody. This is for everybody. Everybody needs to shut down to get the best creative ideas. This is for professionals, too. If you're a professional, the problem is you're working too hard. It's not that that's why you will grow. The reason why you don't grow as fast is because you work too hard.

And I'm guessing doing nothing is not doing this.

No, no, no. Doing nothing literally fold laundry like this stupidest shit, where there's actually nothing, no active side of your brain or your, Your, Your. Your, you know, your conscious mind is not engaged.

So I run from that place. Right. I'm learning to deal with that as I. As I uncover what I'm really running away from. But I think as entrepreneurs, we fill every one of those seconds through even more work. But what you're saying is it's. It's actually that almost boredom is necessary. Is necessary in order for the next creative breakthrough to happen.

Absolutely. Absolutely. Think about it like this. Best ideas never came. When you were checking Facebook, your best ideas were not on somebody else's Facebook feed. Right? It was always when you were taking a hike, you were in the shower, you were taking a bath, you were swimming in the pool or doing whatever is. That is kind of boring in a way, but was actually disengaged your conscious mind and was just your subconscious that took over, suddenly connected the dots, and boom, you have your brilliant idea.

Okay? So there's one more way that you can get some business ideas that isn't so airy fairy. Ryan, just why aren't you telling us what to do? I know, I think creativity is just part of the process. It has to be something that is new or unique. But there's one more way. And I don't know why more entrepreneurs don't consider this. My longest standing mentor, his name is Travis Sago. His strategy is he just asks the market, he just asks the customers that he's going after, would you want this? The thing you have to do is you have to create something that other people want and take the risk of it not working out. Now here's the good news. The risk is really, really small in today's world because you can buy one prototype, you can not even have a prototype and ask people, do you want it? Those are the least risky types of businesses to start. And I want you to know that there are other people that want to get behind those types of ideas. There's a lot more momentum when you come up with some sort of creative idea or unique spin what already exists. There are people who want to fund those businesses. There are customers who want to buy those types of businesses. There are people who want to buy those types of businesses and they're waiting for good entrepreneurs to come up with those ideas and to get the ball moving. It's easy when you're first starting out to think, I'm just starting and other people have the money so they have the leverage. No, it's a really freeing thought. When you finally get the idea that all of the customers and all of the money is waiting for you to move. Because investors need you to be able to make a return on their investment. Customers need you to solve their problems. And when you start thinking like that, you are very powerful and you come up with some great ideas. I had this insight when I sold a business a few years ago and I realized had I not built this business, had I not taken that very small $600 risk, had I not built that thing, then these investors couldn't invest their money. These customers couldn't get a product that they really like because money can't do anything without you. If you think about a private equity group that bought my business, wrote me a fact check and allowed me to invest in things like dividend paying stock and real estate syndications and a bunch of income producing websites and all the things that I invested the cash in so that I never have to work again. There's a private equity group here that bought my business, but over on this side there was a bank and there were private investors who funded that deal for the private equity group. These people, the investors, the banks want their rate of return. They're in the business of getting a rate of return. The equity group is in the business of finding entrepreneurs like you so that they can buy the business, grow it, and flip it. Which means that all of this money, these tens of millions of dollars, need you to grow profitable businesses. You're the engine behind all of it. You're actually the source of the growth. You are the one producing sales, you are the one producing profit. And thus you are the thing that money chases. What a cool and freeing thought when you look at it that way. Because ultimately you are building the source for a much bigger piece of this game is supposed to be fun. It is supposed to be creative. It's supposed to be expansive. It should make you feel excited. And if you want some help getting your creative juices flowing, subscribe to the channel because we throw out a ton of business ideas here and we also have completed reports once a month. We call them Steal this idea where we compile different ideas, where we see gaps in the marketplace, and every month we also go into a different way where you can make a full time income as an entrepreneur, even if you're just starting out. So make sure you subscribe to the channel and look for the link in the description for our community, which is called the 1%. When you take that small risk and say I'll do that idea, or you say looks like there's an opportunity here and you start asking people would you want this? Things just start to open up for you. Money flows in, attention flows in, customers flow in, and you simply need to stand back and let it all happen. That is a lot more fun than people thinking how do I get the result? And trying to force success. It doesn't have to be that way. This can be fun. It should be fun. Thanks for watching the episode. Make sure you subscribe to the channel. You can follow us on social media. We're Ryandan Moran, that's me. Or apitalism.com for all our business business stuff. Thanks for watching. We'll see you on the next episode.