Evan Carmichael breaks down finding a winning business idea: start with deep personal passion, solve a big problem others will pay for, immerse yourself in the industry, find a mentor, and be willing to do the work. Love for the work is what keeps you going when it gets hard.
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Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael. Welcome to another edition of Ask Evan. Today I'm going to answer a question from one of my newsletter readers, Steven, who wrote in saying, "My biggest challenge right now is coming up with a winning idea for a business." So thanks for the question, Steven. A great question, one that a lot of entrepreneurs go through, especially at the beginning, is what business should I start? And I got asked this question so many times that I created a worksheet that's on my website that's $5 that you can go and buy if you want to really work through it. But to give you a kind of quick high-level overview of what I would recommend, first start around things that you're really passionate about. So if you want to be a successful entrepreneur, if you look at any famous successful entrepreneur and you look at their story, you'll always find, always, always, always find a deep passion for what they're doing. They love what they do. They love helping people and they love changing their market and they love what they do. So that has to be core to whatever business that you start. You have to really love what you're doing. If you start a business just trying to make money, you rarely will because you're going to quit as soon as it gets really hard. And it's hard. Running a business is brutal. It's hard. It's tough. It's one of the hardest things you're ever going to do in your life. And the thing that gets you through it is you love what you do. If you're working your butt off and you're hating what you're doing, you're probably not going to keep doing it for very long. So you have to start around something that you're really, really passionate about. From there, think about ways you can turn your passion to be able to help people. So you make money by helping people. The more you can help somebody, the more money you can make, right? The bigger the problem is that you're solving, the more you're going to be able to charge for it. So how can you turn what you're really excited about and really passionate about into being able to add value to other people's lives. Because that's not only going to make you a lot of money, it's also going to be a lot more fulfilling. You know, the best part of my day is when I get emails coming in from you guys saying how much you like the newsletter I sent out, the worksheet you just bought, the videos that we created. That feeds me. That makes me want to keep doing this stuff. I love seeing it come in, and I think for any entrepreneur, you're going to get a lot of the benefit and the love of your business from helping other people and seeing the feedback come in from, from your clients. So you gotta match what you love doing with something that's gonna add a lot of value and help other people in their day-to-day lives. So that's, that's the first part. Then I try to explore the business a little bit more. So if you don't have any experience in it, try to find somebody who has done it for a while. You know, look at their lifestyle, look at the type of business that they run, maybe even volunteer or join their company for a little bit to model their success and kind of be paid to learn how that business works so that you get a sense of, is this really what you thought it was gonna be? You know, is this— did the business you had in mind, does it exist? Or once you get into it, you realize that this is just a nightmare, you don't really wanna do it. So being able to have that research done is another great step. And even if you look on the research side, just going to the library and seeing, you know, first, are you willing to go out and go to the library? You know, a lot of— it's great to do research online, but just making that commitment to get out of your house and go somewhere and do some research on your business idea, if you're not willing to do that, chances are you're not going to be a successful entrepreneur in that field. So you have to keep searching until you find something you're willing to wake up and get out of your house and go do some research on. So those are the early stages. It's got to be something that you love doing. It's gotta be something you're willing to put the time in to invest, to research, and learn about, and potentially get mentored in. And it has to be something that you're super passionate about and you know you're helping people. There's a lot of value that you're providing, you're changing people's lives. If you can match all of those things, I would say you have a pretty big winning business idea. Again, we cover a lot of that in more detail in the worksheet, but in general, it's kinda high level. That's where I would start. And hopefully that answers a few of your questions and gets you on the path to success. So thanks for the question. If you're watching the video and you like it, please give it a thumbs up below. Makes me wanna do more for you. And if you have a comment about this video, if you liked it or you didn't, or if you have a question for your own business, feel free to leave it in the comment section below. I always read those. I love seeing them come in and hopefully I'll be able to answer a question for you about your business in the not too distant future. So thank you and I'll see you on the next episode. [MUSIC] [MUSIC]
