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Page 90 GO IT ALONE!
millions of other people want. Almost all of our best investments have sprung from this personal impulse.” Here’s one technique for finding the business ideas in your own experience. For one month, make a note every time you are confronted with a problem that seems ridiculous, either because it is frustrating, or it is wasting your time, or your intuition tells you that there has to be an easier way. If you solve one of these problems for yourself, you may also have invented your next career.
Other Sources of Ideas There are several other sources of business ideas that are particularly appropriate for go-it-alone initiatives.
Where Else Would It Work? In How to Use Everyday Ingenuity to Solve Problems Big and Small , Barry Nalebuff, a professor at the Yale School of Management, and Ian Ayres, a professor at the Yale Law School, create a framework for developing innovative ideas. One component is the notion that in many cases there are solutions waiting for problems. Here, the business founder takes a concept or technology that works in one arena and finds other areas where it can be applied successfully. One example of this kind of innovation is the development of the low-cost spinning toothbrush: the SpinBrush. John Osher is the successful entrepreneur who, as discussed earlier, adopted “Determination” as his personal motto. He developed and sold the Spin Pop, a spinning lollipop with a toy attached. While walking through the aisles of a drugstore, Osher realized that this same technology could be applied to the development of a low-cost automated toothbrush. This insight led
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GO IT ALONE! Copyright 2004 by Bruce Judson. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. All rights reserved.
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