Katie McManus says the best business ideas come from what frustrates you. She's building a women-focused networking group because existing ones felt hostile, and she wishes she'd had her group program BYOB when starting out.
If you're thinking about starting a business and you're not sure what idea you should go with, then I want you to think about what is the thing that frustrates you the most right now that you're like, this shit, this could be better. I need something better. Because I guarantee you, if you're frustrated with it, if you're not getting results, or if it's, you know, just not hitting for whatever reason, then it is wanted by other people as well. Case in point, right? Right now I'm in a networking group and it's a lot of old white guys who just seem to think it's their job to inform and teach and mentor all the young ladies on how to network. I'm really over it. It's so frustrating. So a couple friends and I are, you know, just teasing out the idea of if we should start our own networking group for younger people, specifically women, where we kind of scare away that type of person. Likewise, in my business, when I first started my business, I didn't know what I didn't know. I had a whole background in sales and marketing, so I was able to figure it out because I had a lot of the pieces of the puzzle already. But there are a bunch of things that I had to either pay for mentorship on or work with a coach on to be able to figure it out. So when I was thinking about, okay, well I want to move beyond working just with one on one clients. I want to work with people in a group setting. What can I focus that I really thought through? What are the core skills and things that I needed to figure out when I was first starting that I would have paid anything for to help me get my first five high paying clients. And I wish I had my group program, BYOB when I first started my business, it would have saved me years and honestly made me hundreds of thousands of dollars more than I initially did in those first few years. So whatever it is that you're getting frustrated with, whatever it is that you need help with or you needed help with back in the day, think about how you could create that for the world right now. Because I guarantee you, if it's something that frustrates you right now, then it's not just frustrating you, it's also pissing off other people. And if it's something that you really wish that you had way back in the day, I bet you there are people who are there at that point right now who could use that help from someone who has been where they've been and has walked in their shoes and understands everything that they're going through. And I'm Katie, your practical business coach. And new business owners work with me so that they can leave their corporate 9 to 5 and replace their 6 figure salary by doing work that they love that actually helps people. And tell me in the comments, what's the thing that's pissing you off or frustrating you right now that you might want to start a business around?
