• An idea is only good if there is customers for it
• Small changes can make a bad idea excellent
• You have to think of xxx when defining your idea
• Pitch your idea to everyone and everybody to get feedback
• No users, no business

So you have anidea of a business, you are very excited and daydreaming of your futuremillions of SDG company? Wait! How do you know that this idea of all otherideas you had before will win the race of becoming a successful business, Imean ideas are everywhere why you should invest your time and money in thisparticular one?

In anotherwords: What make an idea great for business?

The keywordswill be: Problem and solution. Basically a good business idea is a solutionto a problem. “It solves a problem”, this statement sound veryself-evident? Surprisingly a lot of people when they started their businesses seems toforget it. Let us be more specific:

How do we know that some problem is a businessworthy problem? I mean: why is this particular problem worth solving?Five characteristics can help us identify whether a problem is good for makinga business out of:

First: Popular – a good problem for a business idea isa problem, that a lot of people suffer from, meaning more people are interestedin making this problem go away.

Second: Growing – a problem can be a growing issue,which means that a lot of people will suffer from this problem in the nearerfuture.

Third: Urgent – an urgent problem can be good for a businessidea, as someone would need this to be solved right now.

Fourth: Profitable – will solving this problem be apotential for creating income and profits?

Fifth: Sustainable – a problem that need solvingagain and again, is one way of knowing that your idea is fit for a sustainable businessset to last long.

It’s not mandatory that the problem you addresswith your solution should have all or any of these five characteristics to leadto a successful business. Nevertheless if you identify some of them, you willknow that your idea has some potential.

So, when you have this millions of SDG businessidea, stop! And ask yourself “What’s the problem here?”

Lets take an example: Say you have got abusiness idea for a “shared taxi app”; the problem you are  addressing could go like: “current taxiapps services are too expensive”.

Don’t forget “The problem that you are solvingwith your business idea should be very clear to you from the beginning”

Then take a while asking yourself is thisproblem: popular? Growing? Urgent? I can make profit by solving it? And is itan ongoing?

You took your time asking these questions andcame up with your own answers? Great your now in the mid of road of having agood business idea.

Yeah the problem is half of yourbusiness success. Look closely to the statement: “Solve a problem” theother part of the road is Solve.

Solve means a solution. And this solution isyour business idea.

Thinking through the problem you might come upwith a solution that goes something like: “Most of the time taxis have emptyseats, Meanwhile a lot of people heading to the same directions, those peoplecould share a taxi and split the cost between them”.

Congratulations, you have a good business idea,and now you’re certainly heading towards your future successful business. Ofcourse your idea don’t need to be new and innovative. Maybe you are justsolving a problem like “cars breaking down” by setting up an auto-mechanics garage,like many have done before you. That’s fine, you will of course need to thinkabout competition then, and how you can succeed in this field. We will discussthis in part 6.

But what if by going through this has made yourealize, that you idea is not going to work? Don’t worry, next part will helpyou if you don’t have any business idea at all.

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