Financials

<p>For the past few years, I have been consulting multiple startups and budding entrepreneurs. One question that I often get asked is how to generate a business idea. Should we follow our passion? Should we focus on money? How to decide the industry in which I should operate? Below I have tried to answer multiple such answers.</p><ul><li><strong>Find an idea that you are passionate about</strong>&nbsp;- Please be careful here. I am not saying or recommending to blindly follow your passion. But to look for ideas around your passion which has&nbsp;economic and financial&nbsp;sense. The passion fades away if you are not making a living out of it. Creating a successful business model that earns consistent profits is key for any startup. First preference should always be given to the ideas around your passion.</li><li><strong>Identify your life and work experience</strong>&nbsp;- Start by writing your life story, all the hurdles that you have overcome, all the experiences that you have had in your life. Identify each task that you have done for someone else. Identify all the companies that you have worked in. Note why your friends and family reach out to you for. List down everything of which you can think. The idea here is to note down all the things that you are good at or any skill that you might have developed during your life. This list can be extremely helpful in identifying a business idea.</li><li><strong>Find a problem that you can solve</strong>&nbsp;- After identifying your passion and listing all your areas of expertise, you now need to look into the world around you and find a problem that you can solve related to your niche. Build a business solving that problem. Ask yourself these questions. Write it down in your journal.</li></ul><ol><li>What is the biggest problem that you can solve?</li><li>What is something that people need that does not exist?</li><li>What products or services already exist? can you make them better?</li></ol><ul><li><strong>Follow the business trend -&nbsp;</strong>For any startup to be successful, the timing of the business is of utmost importance. It is one of the major factors to determine the success or failure of a startup. To identify the timing of your startup, you need to take a look at the current trend and follow that trend. You need to identify the industry which is profitable to do business in right now. Your job as an entrepreneur is to identify the most attractive industries out of many industries. To identify the trend, the following could be helpful.</li></ul><ol><li>Read Business Newspapers - Pay close attention to all the businesses that are currently featured in the news. Check how often are the businesses in the same industry being covered. Identify all the industries that look profitable.</li><li>Check out the Stock Market - Identify all the industries which are showing good growth from the past year. Compare the growth pattern of the top 5 companies in each industry you have shortlisted. It is said that Stock Market discounts all the factors before the news hits the market. Therefore, stock market data can be helpful in identifying the potential industry.</li><li>Crowd Funding Sites - You can look at some crowdfunding campaigns which are successfully funded. Check out if these business ideas are compelling and sound interesting.</li></ol><p>By following the above-mentioned steps you would surely come up with multiple ideas to start your business around. However, identifying an idea is one thing and testing the business idea if it works is another important factor.</p><p>&nbsp;</p>