How To Choose Which Business To Start?

If you're sitting on 3 business ideas and can't pick, or maybe you have no ideas for your next business, this episode is for you. Here's today's biggest takeaway right from the top. Okay? Choosing the right business is not about the perfect idea. All right? It's about providing exceptional value using your existing skills and experiences that you already have to people in a way and in a product that people want. You're leveraging your skills and experiences with a product that people actually need. But that's really the whole answer. We're going to talk about how to actually implement this strategy in today's episode. As today is Q&A Wednesday, we had a question from one of our listeners, and I have with me my co-founder, my executive producer of the podcast, and my wife, Nicole Baldino. Nicole, welcome.

Hey, Omar. Happy to be here. I'm excited for today's question because I think it's one that people are quietly stuck on. And today's question comes from Grace. Grace asks, I really want to start a business, but I keep going back and forth on what it should be. How do I actually decide which business to start? Wow, Omar, where do you even begin with this one?

Grace, I really love this question because most people skip this concept. I'm also very fascinated by this concept of a lot of us, we do a lot of long-term things with very little time To decide those things. So, for example, a lot of us, we took maybe a couple of weeks, a month to decide our major in university. And it wasn't like a dedicated month. It was like here or there. And then we spent 4 years studying that subject. So, it's actually a good idea to spend a little time, a little more time than it feels a little bit comfortable to make a solid decision before you start a business so that you invest the next 3, 4, 5 years, 10 years on the right thing. But more importantly, this is something I talk about a lot here on the podcast, and that is business is hard. I don't like to sugarcoat it. It's challenging, especially your first one. And with your first business, you're going to make mistakes. We all make mistakes when we're learning something for the first time. You pay what I call an ignorance fee, right? You have to pay it off. There's a cost to learning things that you just can't learn without experiencing it, without actually doing it. And It's unavoidable. Everyone pays this fee. So my goal isn't to avoid difficulty, right? My goal here is to give you some advice to increase your likelihood of success as much as possible, to stack the deck in your favor as much as possible so that you— your business can survive your learning curve, right? Despite the fact this is going to be hard and despite the fact that you're going to be making mistakes, it's good enough to sustain itself and move beyond all those kind of challenges. So, the right choice, the right business doesn't make it easy, but it makes it survivable. It makes it worth your while. It makes it easier for you to be able to stay in this business to see some success. We love a good framework. So, I want to give one of my favorite frameworks when it comes to deciding which business you should start, whether this is your first business or even your next business. It's a 3-part framework that I believe these 3 elements are critical for for you to be able to succeed in this business, okay? So we're gonna stack these 3 because all 3 of them are gonna really just tilt things just enough for you to be successful if you have everything right. So element 1 of this framework is you wanna leverage the skills and the experiences you already have, okay?

Mm-hmm.

Not the skills you plan to learn, not a skill that you're hoping that you can learn through a course or some coaching before you start your business. We're talking about something that you're already doing, Something you're already getting paid for. And we all have some skills that we've picked up, whether it's in school, whether it's in our jobs right now, in our careers, even if it was just for part-time work. You know, I did some telemarketing when I was in university, which was a part-time job, and I was selling long-distance, you know, services. That was back in the day when that was separate. It was with MCI. And I learned a lot of sales skills, so I can leverage some of those skills in a business. So, My point here is that you don't have to start from scratch. You're not starting from scratch. You're starting with things that you already have, things you have attained. You just want to parlay those into something that you want to build.

I think part of the exercise or that time that you were talking about investing in the thinking phase could be spent just even listing those skills. I remember early on when we were starting out and I was trying to carve out my way into the business, what role I would fulfill and what the business needed. I remember doing this exercise where I listed all the things that I had done, whether it was volunteer work, part-time jobs, my career as a teacher, all the skills that that brought with it, with teaching. And then I think I did this other exercise where I asked you or a friend. This is such a long time ago.

What are my strengths?

What are my strengths? What do you know me for? What am I good at? And I think just spending time listing, and it kind of brings you back to all the things that you've done that you've forgotten about. I recalled like a, you know, a summer job that I had done taking a bunch of students from— who'd come from Japan on a tour around Sydney, and, you know, interspersed with like English lessons. I was like, oh, that's a little bit of tour guiding there that I'd totally forgotten I had done.

Yeah.

Whether that's a skill that I would then parlay into a business is a different story, but You start to see then some threads and commonalities.

Yeah, but it's good just to dump it all and then you can decide later. You know, you know that this happened. And sometimes we undervalue ourselves. We don't really, uh, highlight some of these smaller kind of experiences that actually can augment our ability to do well in business. Um, and just to kind of be really meta, we can use the example of this podcast, uh, as all 3 elements are hit. And if you kind of reverse engineer our success of this podcast, and our business, The 100 All MBA, it's because of these 3 elements. And the first element we're gonna talk about is, you know, leveraging skills. So here at The 100 All MBA on the podcast, we do a lot of teaching.

Mm-hmm.

And a lot of people know that, know my story. I was an educator for over 12 years in this classroom. I literally taught 5 days a week, 5 lessons a day, you know, for over a decade. So like I have a lot of reps of taking ideas, concepts, boiling 'em down to the simplest form and trying to communicate them to my students. My job, my paycheck depended on it.

Yeah.

So I got really good at that. So using the skill of teaching really helps me have some sort of advantage in this world of podcasting, in the world of business education. Let's move on to element number 2, and that is to serve a market or a group of people you genuinely understand. Ideally, you're a member of this group. You understand the lingo, you understand their needs, you understand their wants, you understand them because you are them. And this really helps because this gives you a bit of an unfair advantage of people trying to come from outside a market and try to understand their needs. They're going to really be relatable. People get you because you get them. And this is why I believe with this podcast that we were able to kind of resonate with our audience is because we're business builders as well. We built our software company for 10 years and shared the journey as we're building this podcast. We understand how to be a beginner. Like, one of the things I really try to tap into, and every time we do an episode, is what it's like to be a listener, you know. And I try as much as possible never to forget the struggle of getting traction, you know, the, the joy of getting your first customer, your first sale, you know, all these milestones you have to go through, uh, in the business journey. And we understand, uh, business people because we're around them all the time. All our friends are entrepreneurs. Uh, we understand the lingo. We understand that there are really no days off. You're constantly thinking about it. All these little nuances really make you understood and you understand who you're serving. And then finally, element number 3, probably the most critical element. They're all critical, but this one is kind of non-negotiable, and that is you need to solve a significant problem, a significant pain that they cannot ignore. Your audience needs to have something solved, right? I'm not interested, especially in your first business in solutions to nice-to-haves. Okay? We're not looking at nice-to-haves. We're not looking at like small inconveniences.

Mm-hmm.

We're looking at a problem that's costing them time, that's costing them money, that's costing them maybe even night's sleep. It's keeping them up at night. It's keeping their mind occupied, right? The more painful the problem, the easier it is going to be for you to sell your product or service because They're in such a need for a solution, they will try anything. I mean, one of the things that comes to mind is like, when you're on holiday and you get the sniffles, you have a cold, you get the flu, right? You're willing to go to the pharmacy and like buy whatever. Like, you know, like, does this work? Okay, I'll try this, I'll try this, I'll try this. Like, you're so desperate to have some relief so you can enjoy your holiday that you're like trying all this different medication with the hopes that it's gonna help.

Yeah. And so do you think you need all 3 to make this viable? I'm thinking, so you mentioned 3 elements, leveraging your skills, understanding or being a part of the group, and solving like a true pain point that people are willing to pay for. Is it possible to start with just, say, 2?

It's a good question. And my honest answer is that you need 2 solid of the 3. Right? The second, the third one, which is the pain point, is non-negotiable. So you need at least one of the first 2. But if you're asking my personal opinion, all 3 is required because I want to, again, stack the deck in your favor and make it as easy as possible. There are, there are some challenges that you don't perceive, right? We just watched The Odyssey.

Yeah.

You heard it yet? And there's going to be some monsters out there that you're not expecting.

No spoilers, but—

Right. You're going to see a Cyclops, your own version of the Cyclops. You're going to see these giants are going to be chasing you out of your business. You're gonna see competition, right? So this is why I'm saying like you, all 3 helps, you know, I always say fortify your business a little bit. And the, the way I filter pain point, if this is a real pain point, if this is a real need, is that if there's an economic downturn, if we are in 2008 again and it's a financial crisis and companies are slashing budgets, is this one of the things that they just can't slash?

Mm-hmm.

And My guess is probably no.

That was really helpful. And I want to bring it back to what Grace might be thinking. She is really good at something. What if I am really good at something? How much do I weigh up that skill set versus is there really a need for it or much demand for it?

I'm gonna try to put this as simply as possible. There must be a demand for what you are good at, right? There must be a demand Full stop. Okay? There's no way around that. So the, your skill really only matters if people are hungry for it. Mm-hmm. And this is kind of hard to absorb sometimes, cuz sometimes we're like, I, I, maybe my skills are not wanted. But what really you need to look at is like, who needs your skills? Sometimes you just need to change your audience and that really changes everything. Uh, so your skills are really just the starting point. Then the finish line is how can I fulfill a demand with those skills? We're going to share some exercises that you could do even just this weekend to figure out, is there a demand in the market for what I have, and how much of a demand, and if it's worth you actually spending your time and money and energy starting this business.

I'm excited to hear your answer and what possible things people can do. But then I always think about the fact that there's that ignorance fee. There's that time at the beginning of a business journey where you are experimenting, where you're learning so much. That, you know, even in this process that maybe you might not hit the nail on the head with the first business idea, you're getting so many other benefits and so many other skills.

Yeah, 100%.

In that process.

I think I just want to touch on this ignorance fee thing. A lot of people don't understand what I mean by this. You are probably very good at your skills or whatever you do. Like, I have a very close friend. He's a photographer, right? I've known him for years, and he is very good at what he does. but he's horrible at business. He doesn't know how to sell his products and services. He doesn't know how to get gigs. He doesn't know how to, you know, get testimonials. He doesn't know the exercise of making money. So this is the ignorance fee. Like, how do I actually sell the thing I have and utilize my skills and build new skills as a business owner?

Mm-hmm.

So there's some things you're gonna stumble upon, some things you're not gonna be great at in the beginning when it comes to business, and that's fine. But if your skills are highly sought after and you have a demand and you understand that audience very well, this is gonna be enough for you to overcome some of these, uh, you know, small mistakes along the way. If this episode is helping you get unstuck, subscribe to the show. Why not? Or hit subscribe on whatever app you're using right now, whether it's Apple, Spotify, YouTube. Uh, I want you to hit subscribe cuz we have an upcoming episode. Nicole and I are doing a Q&A Wednesday episode on How do I know if my business is failing or if I should keep going? You know, a lot of people are not sure, like, is this a dip right now? Is it just about to get successful? Or is this just a disaster and I should just quit and start a new business? Okay, so we actually explain what are some of the signs, what are some of the signals, what are some of the things that will tell you in black and white that, hey, this is failing, you need to, you know, shut it down, start something new. Or no, you're on the right track. Keep going. Keep persevering. You're almost there. So hit subscribe so you don't miss that episode. It's coming soon.

Alright, so we've touched on being very good at your skill set, and using that as the foundation for a business. You've talked about this before. I think it comes up in this question as well. Passion. Where does the follow your passion advice fall into this? Because I think you've talked about this on the podcast before. You had a clothing business called Zenhome Designs. Yeah. And you was profitable, was doing really well. There was a need. All of that hit all of those. Well, let's see if it hit all those elements because you closed it down.

Right? Right.

Because you hated it. Yeah. Let's be honest.

Yes.

Tell us about that.

Yeah, that's a great catch. And let me be precise about this because I believe there's a few rules you need to follow. Rule number one is that you have to be valuable. That comes first, regardless of how you feel about the business. If you enjoy the business, if you don't enjoy the business, it's not really a successful business if you're not providing value to other people. Like a lot of us, we want to believe that if I'm passionate about something, then other people will be passionate about it. That's not always necessarily true. Um, so you have to always be valuable. Passion doesn't really pay anyone. It doesn't add any value to anyone. It doesn't matter how passionate I am about gummy bears, if I can't really, you know, take that passion and, you know, and package it into something that people actually like, making it funny, making it entertaining, making it something, then there's no real value for other people. Okay, rule number 2 is you need to find the value and the enjoyment in what you do. Okay, so—

Mm-hmm.

And why? You have to find some sort of personal value, some personal enjoyment, because business is a long road. It takes a while to get successful. There are challenges, like I mentioned. There's going to be some Cyclopses in your world, right, coming at you. So it has to be enjoyable enough so that you don't quit, right? If it's— and that's what happened to me. I quit because I got burnt out, and I was doing it because I was making money and it was successful and I liked the winning of it. But that gets old very quickly if you're not actually enjoying the day-to-day.

Yeah.

So you mentioned Zenhom Design, my clothing line, my custom tailored clothing line that I had. The business was was successful. I mentioned this in a previous episode. Uh, products sold really well. Uh, customers really loved what I had. Uh, there was real demand for it, like almost too much demand. I couldn't fulfill all the orders. Uh, most customers were actually more passionate about the products than I was, which was a big sign for me that like, I don't know if I'm in the right business, you know?

Uh-huh.

And I, I closed it down because I was really burnt out. I was on a full-time job as a teacher. I was the chair of department at the university we were working at together. And I was also running this quite busy and successful business, and I just got burnt out. The truth of the matter is, if I really enjoyed the day-to-day, if I enjoyed, you know, creating new products and making new styles and geeking out on what sold well and what didn't sell well, working with models like human models to shoot these, you know, new lines of clothing and putting them up on the website, all that kind of stuff, I enjoyed that. I'd probably be like, hey, I'm quitting my job. I'm going to do this full-time. This thing is doing well. It's selling. And that would be like my exit out. But I actually would escape to my job because I enjoyed that more than the business. So, that was a big mistake. That was a big mistake for me for picking a business that I wasn't passionate about, something that I didn't really enjoy. Passion is like a very loaded word.

Yeah.

I would say like you just enjoy it. Like it's not a pain to show up every day at work. You actually look forward to it.

Well, that brings us to a really good point about the wrong reasons, going into business for the wrong reasons. So maybe can you give Grace and the viewers a bit of an insight into what are some of the wrong reasons that people pick a business or go into a business for the wrong reasons?

Yeah, 3 come to mind, 3 big wrong reasons to start a business. The first one with the bullet is because it is working for somebody else. A lot of people see somebody else being successful and they're like, oh, I'm going to do that because it looks like I'm going to win. I'm going to be able to be successful with that kind of business. You saw somebody crush it in some sort of online course or running this type of physical business, whether it's like a, you know, a retail store. Maybe they got into like crypto and they're like, oh, the crypto is where it's at. So, I'm going to do that too. Just because it worked for somebody else doesn't mean it's going to work for you. Why? Because everything we talked about today, like that person has a particular skill set. Has a particular set of experiences that fuels that business. There are circumstances. There's luck involved. Like, we can't forget that that is a thing. Luck is a part of the thing. Timing, you want to call it whatever you want, serendipity. This person might have a better network than you. Whatever. Like, this is the thing about business education that is challenging for me is like there are some fundamentals I want to share with you. There are things that I know work. But at the end of the day, you have to try it because— You and your circumstances is different than me and my circumstances. So, you have to be very careful about taking advice and just not taking it with a grain of salt, just taking it for face value. So, that's reason number 1, which is just because it worked for somebody else, I think it's going to work for me.

I want to stay on that one because it's a bit of a sticky one for me because I think we've heard this advice where if it's working for someone else, then it's a proven It's a proven service. That means there's demand for it, right? But I see where you're coming from with a real example from my life. Actually, I haven't shared this before, but as you know, my dad worked a lot of pizza shops in his day. He was a blue-collar worker, you know, and just before he retired, he worked at a pizza restaurant and he passed away.

Rest in peace.

About 10 years ago. Thank you. And one of the things that he used to always come home after a shift at the pizza, the restaurant, uh, was he would tell me and my brother, we have to open a pizza shop because he would see the place was packed. It was a, it was a restaurant in Sydney that was always packed. He was really good at his job. He could make pizzas better than anyone. And so he saw, well, this is like free money.

Mm-hmm.

I mean, he saw the profit margins, he saw the customers, he saw how busy it was all the time. It's like, Why not open a pizza store, a pizza restaurant? And my brother and I were like, no, Dad, we have zero interest in this business. And so to your point though, what I think he was missing, and I realized this years later, is that he's not seeing all the other things that support a business. He's seeing it from an employee perspective or someone who's driving by. And he's not seeing what goes into the infrastructure, the team, the hiring, the reputation, the marketing, the sales.

Mm-hmm.

But the engine that really supports that business is not immediately obvious, is it? So, you're seeing the success and you want to copy that, but you're not seeing the day-to-day and imagining the day-to-day. I think it's such a great point. It's such a— it's a trap I think that people fall into.

100%. And that kind of leads me to wrong reason number 2, which is the business doesn't really fit your life or what you imagine your life to be or the lifestyle that you want. No one really thinks about this a lot of times when they start a business. They see an opportunity, they just think like, hey, this looks like a good idea. Some businesses require constant travel. Some businesses require you to be on a 2 AM call. We used to do, you know, we had all hands every month when we ran Webinar Ninja. We had a global team of 30 people across the world. So we used to do shifts. And every 3 months, somebody would have to get up at 2 AM to attend this, you know, all hands. And, you know, that was sometimes us, you know. And, you know, if you have kids to look after, if you have to get up early, if you have, you know, maybe an elderly parent you have to look after, maybe that doesn't fit your lifestyle. And maybe having a global team and a startup and all that kind of stuff is just not what you want.

Yeah.

You know, you maybe want the success of a startup, but you don't really want the lifestyle. And this is the thing, like, I look at Webinar Ninja for 10 years, we built that company, right? You know, the success of that, the exit was fantastic, and that moment of celebration is fantastic. But really, if I look at that moment in comparison, that was like maybe we celebrated for a day versus 10 years. Like, I decided to spend 10 years of my life doing that. I better enjoy the process. And luckily we did. We loved building a team. We loved building a great product. We loved doing the webinars. It was enjoyable. I look back at those 10 years. Yeah, there were some struggles and some hard times for sure.

Mm-hmm.

But it wasn't like a waste of 10 years because of the way we really enjoyed every moment. You know, so yeah, there is the success, but that's not the only thing. There's a third reason that I want to share that it's the wrong reason to start a business. And it's a funny one. And it's a little bit off script, a little off notes, because it's something I kind of hesitate to share because it's a little bit hard to understand. But a lot of us, we have dreams, we have business ideas that we've had for years. Right? Some people have for decades, they've had like, I've always wanted to start this type of business, right? And, and it's gonna lead to the next thing we're gonna talk about is like, that is really not a great business to start now, right? Like it was when you first thought of it, right?

Mm-hmm.

Like, you know, like you had the concept, you had the idea, but you've been sitting on it for like 5, 6, 7, 10 years. Things change very quickly in the marketplace. And you know, you're just like, I gotta do this. I've always wanted to do this. And you just go in without validating, you go in without thinking that's gonna be successful.

'Cause like you've been thinking about it, it's so big in your head.

But you— the world has changed since then.

Mm-hmm.

And it's kind of hard to kind of like come to terms with that because it's kind of like you're— I'm not going to get to fulfill my dream. And this is why I always say like the goal should always be to be a successful entrepreneur, to have a successful business. How you get there is all dependent on a lot of things outside of your realm of influence, like the marketplace, like, you know, your circumstance, like your skills and all that kind of stuff. So, you want to make sure That you set a goal that is actually attainable, which is like, I want success in business, whatever way that looks like, you know, whatever business that is.

And that's almost the flip side of people who jump on trends. Like they see something that's hot right now with what's the yogurt, frozen yogurt places jumping on those trends. It's the flip side of that, which is why I think this episode and this question is so good because, you know, from either angle it can look like a great idea, but if it doesn't hit all of those 3, You're missing that thing that's going to make the business sustainable and viable.

Right.

Viable and sustainable. Yeah, it should be that order.

Yeah. Yeah.

All right. So Grace has now narrowed it down to say 2 or 3 ideas. What if there's a tiebreaker? Which one does she go with?

I love this question because one thing that business has taught me in 20 years is to be humble, right? Right? You have to, it humbles you, 20 years of business. Why? Because you learn that you don't know what you're talking about. You don't know what you know, right? You think you know. Stop trying to decide. Stop thinking that I have to choose and I'm so smart and I'm going to know exactly which is the best one. And it's up to me. It's not actually up to you. Let the market decide, right? It's very good to be humble and innocent about what you think is going to work. All right. And this is why experimentation's so integral in success in business, right? You, you're gonna think one way or the other, but if you can't decide, run a pilot. Mm-hmm.

Test it out.

One of the lightest ways to do this this weekend is to create a waiting, uh, a waiting list. Uh, it could be a simple landing page where you could just like, hey, I'm launching this new product or service. Would you like to get on the waiting list? By being on the waiting list, you'll get like a discount or you get first access or whatever it might be. And the whole point of this exercise is to have, uh, to see if there's demand. And you could just create a one-page landing page or website, and it has an email capture, and you could just send traffic to it where you run some paid ads. You can throw $50, $100, $200 on Meta ads, Facebook, Instagram, where you are just targeting the demographic, the audience that would be interested in this product or service. And you want to see, are people actually willing to just put their name and email address down?

Mm-hmm.

And are they interested in what you have to offer? They're not paying anything, but it's some level of interest. If no one is signing up, then you know that there's a problem here, right? But this is an easy way to just like spend a little bit of time to validate before you spend the next 2, 3, 4, 5 years trying to make this business work. And if you are hearing this right now and you're like, oh, you know, that seems like a lot of work, you know, like stop. Stop. Don't do this business. If that's a lot of work, then you don't know what is ahead of you, right? That's very little work compared to what you'll have to do if there is demand.

Yeah.

If you actually have to fulfill customers, you have to give money to a supplier or to a service so that you can supply to the customer, collect money from the customers, give refunds, deal with people that are upset and angry. Like, this is what business is about. So, this is a very small, easy step. To get you going. So testing, trialing is a really good way to find out if this is something that people actually want, if this is a business that has legs. You know, don't trust your intuition, especially in the start. You know, right now you need to just see if the market wants it.

Mm-hmm.

And, you know, I just wanna kind of wrap this, uh, episode up and wrap up my final thoughts when it comes to helping Grace and everybody else who's listening, who's trying to decide. Uh, and, and really to wrap up, like, You don't need to decide. The market decides for you, right? You don't need to— like, the only thing you need to decide is like choose from the options that you'd like to do, you know, the things that you would actually enjoy, things that it would actually—

Skills you have.

Yeah, skills that you have, all the things that we discussed. So that leverages the skills that you already have. Yeah. So I, I really think that a lot of us, we're trying to make all these decisions when you need to start getting into the habit where you just get data and those— the data drives your decisions. Right now you don't have much data. It's all in your head. Maybe we asked a few friends, but friends just give you lip service. They tell you everything is good and that sounds good, but they're never actually going to buy. You need to find out in the marketplace if this thing has legs.

I think we covered a lot in this episode and in answering this question, but I think it's a big one. Our aim is really to get people unstuck, and I genuinely feel that a lot of people are stuck. Sorry, in this phase of deciding. And so hopefully, all of these elements that you outlined and all the examples we gave helps people get unstuck.

I want to talk about that for one second to wrap up because it's probably worth the whole episode. So the last thing I want to kind of leave everybody on is just on that point, like, and this might be worth the whole episode. And it's if you are feeling stuck in life in general, if you want to make a change in your life, the best thing you could do is to take action. Any action, right? Even if it's the wrong action, right? Just take action and continue to take action. If you want to get healthy, just take any kind of action. Go for a walk, go for a run, uh, do some push-ups, uh, join a gym, buy some new sneakers, whatever. Like, just do something, right?

Well, the fact that Grace has taken the first step, submitted her question— go Grace! And if you want to submit your question and have Omar answer it here on Q&A Wednesdays, go ahead. Go to 100mba.net/qandawednesday.

Awesome. And if you want to continue learning, we have a recent episode that we published called How to Validate Your Business This Weekend. If you want to do that validation process we kind of touched on, if you want all the details, all the steps, all the frameworks, we cover it in that episode. It's called How to Validate Your Business Idea This Weekend. Thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks, Nicole, for joining me today on Q&A Wednesday. I'll see you next week.

Thanks, Omar.

And we'll check you in the next one. Bye!