How to find a great idea for a business?

Ever feel this way -

"Where do people come up with ideas for their businesses?"

"Why didn't I think of that?"

Good ideas aren't floating on the surface. They require IMMERSION. Anybody can do that, but it requires a bit of structure and dedication.

Immersion in this context means talking to people in a specific niche - 3 conversations can give you a sense of direction, after 10 you'll have clarity.

How do you choose a niche? That depends on your goals, but let's say you're chasing the usual $10k MRR dream and you want to get there by selling software in some way.

You can do it by selling $10/month subscriptions to 1000 people or $100/month subscriptions to 100 people. Let's say we're going after the latter strategy.

First filter for the niche are people or businesses that would be willing to pay $100 / month to solve a painful problem - any painful problem.

We don't know what the problem is going to be, but we know what kind of people were looking for - either high net worth individuals for whom $100/month is not a problem or business owners who are used to spend hundreds and thousands of dollars to solve business problems. The latter is usually a better bet.

Next filter is who you have personal access to. What kind of business owners can you reach through your network? Do you have friends working for businesses who could put you in touch with the owners? Your parents? Siblings? Any recreational groups you're in?

Your goal is to find one such person, and it doesn't really matter what business they are in (unless it's a topic you really despise).

Now you interview them and ask two main questions -

(1) What's the biggest challenge for them personally and in their industry in general?

(2) Where can you find more business owners of the same kind to interview?

Your excuse for having these conversations is curiosity about their line of work. That's usually enough to get people talking.

Keep talking to people in the same industry until you reach one of two conclusions:

(1) You can say with a high degree of confidence that there are no interesting problems here that can be solved with software.

(2) There is a common thread of problems that these people are fighting with and software (or a combo of software and service) might offer a solution.

If you reach conclusion (1), you move on to the next field in your network.

If you reach conclusion (2), you dive in, start building an MVP, keep talking to the same people and try to make something out of it.

The challenge here is to avoid exploring multiple industries at the same time. You need to focus and spend at least 4 weeks and 10-20 conversations immersing yourself in one industry. And only then move on.

Few people will actually do this, but I guarantee with 100% certainty that you'll find an interesting (and lucrative) problem to solve if you do.

(For more of my writing check out finereli.substack.com)