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How Do I Choose the Best Creative Small Business Ideas?
Starting a small business can be a daunting task, but if you surround yourself with supportive people who are invested in your success, you will have a much easier time getting started. Choosing creative small business ideas is a matter of analyzing what type of business you want to start and having a good idea what your own strengths and weaknesses are. Thinking creatively about your business is a matter of identifying a market and figuring out how to reach them in new and different ways. Creative small business ideas come from your own imagination, but also from the inspiration of others.
The smart business owner has analyzed other successful businesses and taken note of creative small business ideas those companies have undertaken. While you shouldn't necessarily copy those ideas exactly, they can act as guidelines for your own creative small business ideas. You should strive to personalize your business and make it stand out above all other competitors, but you can still use successful business models or ideas as guidelines for your own. It is not always necessary to re-invent the wheel; instead, you can see what works and make it your own strategy.
Outsourcing creativity is another great way to come up with creative small business ideas. This essentially means you work with other people who are invested in your business either financially or otherwise to brainstorm ideas. This creative team will help you gain perspective on the business that you would not otherwise have on your own. The important motivator in this situation is finding a way to ensure the members of a creative team are somehow invested in your business. You might offer shares of stock, discounts or free items, recognition, or other incentives to the people who help you improve the business.
One of the biggest challenges a small business owner will face is funding. The traditional route to secure funding for a business is to get a business loan or investors, which often means taking on debt at high interest rates. Creative small business ideas often work around this issue by finding better ways of funding. Crowdsourcing, for example, is a relatively new method of funding projects and businesses by approaching several people about your project or business. These people can make small investments into the business for a set reward that the business owner sets ahead of time. With enough investors, the business owner can reach a funding goal without owing a lot of money at high interest.
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![Creative small businesses usually begin from a person's hobbies or passions.]()
By: FedeCandoniPhotoCreative small businesses usually begin from a person's hobbies or passions.
Discussion Comments
Remember that just because you have a great business idea, doesn't mean that you're going to love actually working on it. I know I've come up with several very good ideas over the last few years and I've even seen people run with a couple of them. But, I realized, even after I knew the idea would make money, that it wouldn't really interest me to work on it. A small business means long hours, and constant juggling.
Unless you are really passionate about it, I personally would look elsewhere.
Make sure you have creative and supportive people in your life before you try to start a small business. It always seems like it would be easy from the outside, but it never is. It's always many many more hours than you'd expect and often the returns aren't as good as you might anticipate either.
But, it is very rewarding. If you come up with a good idea, you should run with it. But try to see it from all angles first. Particularly if you want to patent something. If you don't manage to get it right the first time, someone else might come along and improve on it, and they will be the one to get the good returns.
One of my friends recently experimented with crowd sourcing. She was in a band and they were hoping to raise enough money to be able to record an album. They offered copies of the album for people who would invest money in their cause, as well as other things like piano lessons and restaurant meals with the band.
I think they might have offered something similar to shares in a company as well, which would work for small businesses. Where, if they sold so many albums, people who had invested a certain amount of money would get a small return on it.
I'm not sure if crowd sourcing sites always allow that though, because it might be too close to actually putting shares of your company out. I'm not sure.
At any rate, they managed to make all the money they needed and more. If you have a good business proposal and something wonderful and creative to offer people, I'm sure you could get the same return.
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