Good Business Idea

What makes a good business idea?

• To solve one person’s pain (according to Joel)
• To able to make tons of money out of it (according to VC and Businessman)
• An idea isn’t important at all, it’s the implementation that count (Einstein: Genius is 1% inspiration, 99% perspiration)
• A good business idea is something that’s proven successful by others
• A good business idea is something unique, not thought of or used by others yet
• A good business idea is the simplest idea in our everyday life (Pet Sitting, Cleaning Service, Delivery Service, etc)
• Something which you are passionate about
• Something which target the niche market, where competition is non-existent
• A idea which is no unique, that it could not be copied or replicated easily

So, what do I think of my idea?

• It solves a major pain in Property Sale & Purchase decision
• We might be able to make some money out of it
• We have quite a lot of competitors, but I wonder how much money are they making as well
• The idea could be copied with moderate effort, but we are banking on first mover advantage and customer loyalty (as long as we continue to do a good job on it, people will stay with us). Besides, we should be moving faster and more innovative than others
• It is an interesting idea and it had not been done before
• I am passionate about it, it gets the adrenaline pumping

I met with Simon today (my ex-boss) to share my business idea with him, and to get him into my team as well. Basically, he kinda agreed with the idea, but worry on how we are going to make money out of it. Nevertheless, it is still an interesting idea to try on.

What does Simon worry about?

• How are we going to make more money from it? Advertisement, but how much? Hmm, Google made billions from advertisement alone. The theory is as long as you have something which the public want; the traffic will come followed by advertisement. So, I need something which the public want badly and it would be hard to get it from somewhere else.
• How are we going to do the marketing? Yup, I admit we are still pretty new in this. Email and SMS Spam (ops! Forbidden word), online advertisement, individual contact and fair/exhibition. I admit, we are still pretty new and inefficient in this.
• The market might be a bit too small and local. Yup, it might seem so, but there is a lot we could venture into the future, once the brand name is up. Basically, our business is business archival: effective search on business offering.
• Why people would like us or use us? Because we have something which they want and it is not available elsewhere yet?

Basically, I don’t have all the answer. All I have is faith and confidence, believe and passionate about the idea. If I know how to make a million, I am already a millionaire. Nevertheless, though everyone have different perception on the same simple idea, I believe it is workable and worth the try.

What would I loose? Time and Money. What would I gain? A dream come true, or just the chasing part.