Madness Inc

Just sent this to my executive assistant Mike in Bangalore, because I know a handful or so of you guys want to follow the whole process from crazy idea to complete confusion - and I have a complete faith in open source leadership development - so feel free to share and enjoy:

Ok Mike...

Now you'll probably think I am nuts - again.

I want you to spend 5-10 hours next week on creating a list of the top 5-7 business ideas that Nobody should want to touch.

It's like this: When I coach entrepreneurs they always rant about how they must wait until they find the perfect and unique business idea. I keep telling them that they don't NEED to invent a new business idea - all they have to do is take something that is already out there and do a good job. Like selling coffee - you could easily make an excuse and say: "Well, there is already a ton of café's, so it's no point." But then nobody would have started Starbucks. Then it would be easy to say "Well, there is already a ton of chains like Starbucks, so it's no point". But then nobody would have thought of combining a bookstore with a coffee shop. Etc. Even today we see new coffee franchises growing from one shop to hundreds or thousands.

My point is: You never need to WAIT for the original business innovation. The entrepreneurial underdog can ALWAYS find the edge and run circles around a large corporate behemoth. You just have to take any boring idea and start it. In the process of starting it - there will be innovation (IF you are an entrepreneur at heart).

This is what I want to create an innovative exercise about, which I can then sell to my clients. A workshop to find, nourish and support the entrepreneurs inside or outside a company.

For that I need:
- to define and describe 5-7 business ideas that are so common and established and everywhere that nobody should want to think of it if they want to start a new business. Like a coffee shop, like an Internet travel agency that sells airline tickets, like..... I don't know. The point is that the first response must be "No point, it's already been done a million times".
- it should ideally be different types of examples. Something from the service industry as well as something else from product sales, Internet as well as real world. Business to Consumer, Business to Business etc.
- Each business idea should be presented on one page maimum. It should consist of a description of the business idea, and also short bullet points of why it is a total waste of time to start it. (Too much competition, too low profit margins, too difficult to start, too generic, everybody thinks it is boring - you know, all the arguments the entrepreneur would get if they said "I am going to start a nnnnnnn-business)

What do you think? Time to let that mind of yours rock again :-)

Have a great weekend,

/Patrick