Struggling with how to find a profitable business idea?   One of the hardest things about getting started on the entrepreneur or the side hustle path is coming up with a good idea.  I’m going to do my best to give you a system for doing just that, so you can get on your way and stop feeling stuck about what to do next.  Existing startups or small business can also benefit from this approach because it is systematic and is almost guaranteed to help you come up with new ideas.

First off, let me say that if your goal is solely to get funded, or to get featured in TechCrunch - then what I talk about in this episode (and in my Podcast and in website in general is not for you) - it is intended for people (and companies) who want to come up with a great idea for creating something of value in the world, something that helps people.  I’m not saying that VC money or publicity doesn’t have its place, but often there is too much emphasis on these things and too little emphasis on doing the hard work that leads to those things happening naturally.  Just my perspective, others are welcome to their opinion.

Spending time out on the Miami scene here I’ve heard variations of these two questions - “what do I do if I don’t have an idea for a business?” and / or “how do I know if my idea is any good?”  This question comes from startup founders, people in 9-5 jobs, and small business alike.

So we are going to tackle this issue head-on, and instead of just waiting for an idea to hit us upside the head some day, we are going to walk through a step-by-step process for coming up with great ideas.

This is the first episode in a 4-part series on Idea Generation.

The parts of this series are:

1) Idea Generation - coming up with a series of ideas to evaluate

2) Idea Selection - picking one idea to dive into

3) Immersion - diving deeper into an idea

4) Idea Validation - deciding if an idea is worth building an MVP for

I've created step-by-step, printable worksheets you can use to go through each of these valuable steps. I highly recommend it as a thought exercise - even if you don't come up with ideas immediately, you are guaranteed to start stirring things up in your mind, making it more likely that new ideas will come up.

You can find these worksheets at miamihustle.co/resources to follow along - if you don't use these use blank sheets of paper!  Very important to go through the exercise of doing things by hand because it creates unique connections in your mind that will help spawn new ideas.