Evan Carmichael explains why 80% of new entrepreneurs fail: they pick the wrong idea, not because they lack talent. Milton Hershey failed repeatedly in caramel before pivoting to chocolate and building an empire. Carmichael walks through a four-step process to choose a better business idea.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael and welcome to Entrepreneur Mastery. Today I want to talk about how to choose the right business idea. Before getting started though, I wanted to have a quick word about failure. Most entrepreneurs fail. If you look at the stats, something like 80% of new entrepreneurs fail within the first couple years of starting their business. And that's a huge number. It doesn't mean you're a bad entrepreneur. Chances are it's a bad idea. And so with this presentation today, I want to walk you through the steps that you need to take to pick the winning business business idea. If you failed in the past, don't let that stop you. Some of the world's most famous entrepreneurs failed when they first got started, and it wasn't until they hit on their winning business idea that they got to success. So bear with me, we're going to have some fun today. Here's a classic example: Milton Hershey. So dedicated entrepreneur, was working 14-hour days. He started off in the caramel business. So he started in Philadelphia, his hometown, started his business, would make caramels overnight and then sell them during the day. The business did okay, but then he couldn't make his payments. It ultimately failed. So he moved to Denver. Started the same business up again. Same story. It failed. He moved to Chicago. Same story. Failed. He moved to New Orleans. Same story. And then he moved to New York. And finally, after giving it a try in New York, one day a bunch of kids stole all his inventory. He was out of money. He failed again. So here was a dedicated entrepreneur You know, he was really working at it. It wasn't for lack of effort. Tried in 5 different cities the same concept and it didn't work. And then he thought to himself, you know, maybe caramels, that's not a winning business idea. Maybe there's something better that I should be going after. And that's when he discovered chocolate. And the rest is history. Obviously Hershey, from Hershey's chocolates. So, you know, he had the whole systems in place. He just had the wrong business idea from the start. And it wasn't until he switched his course to pick a winning business idea that was able to achieve the success that he had. So let's talk about these 4 steps to success, and hopefully this will help guide you to create the venture that will make you an all-star entrepreneur.
