Carding Forum
Professional
Big companies like Apple, super-successful websites like Facebook, and famous best-selling books all have one thing in common: They all started with a million-dollar idea.
It's clear that we all wonder how their creators managed to come up with these ideas? Do they really just sit on their couch, meditate, and wait for a stroke of inspiration, or a lucky epiphany?
The truth is that spontaneity and luck have almost nothing to do with it.
In this article, we'll take a quick look at 20 tried-and-tested techniques that many of the most successful and smartest entrepreneurs use to create million-dollar ideas.
2. Make mistakes more often. – All bad and unsuccessful ideas become steps on the ladder leading to that very cherished idea. Sometimes, in order to succeed, you have to fail hundreds and thousands of times. Remember, no matter how many mistakes you make and no matter how slow your progress, you are still far ahead of those who didn't even try.
3. Consume information wisely. – Some of my friends think I waste so much time reading books and blogs. It's not true. It's what keeps me on the cutting edge. A mind filled with interesting information literally gushes with fresh ideas… and I've used the knowledge I gained this way to create several successful websites. When you consume new information and interact with new people, try to assume the role of a creator rather than a consumer. Million-dollar ideas and good ideas are all around you – you just have to discover them.
4. Focus on topics and ideas with a large potential reach. – Sure, a million dollars isn't a huge amount of money on a global scale, but it will seem like a huge amount if you're trying to make it in a small market with limited opportunity. You can put a returned Steve Jobs at the helm of your company, but if the maximum market size for it is 100 people worldwide, even he won't make you more than a few dollars. To make big money, you need a large demand in a market of significant size.
5. Make sure there is a place to make money in your future field of activity. – The raiders rob banks for a reason - they know that a lot of money is stored there. So before you get excited about an idea, do much less implementing it, just do a little market research. Make sure that this idea will at least theoretically allow you to earn the money you want. Who are your potential clients and consumers? How much money are they willing to spend on your idea? And so on.
6. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind wide open. – Often, failure to implement one idea opens the way to a new idea. Don't get so hungry on one failed attempt that you miss the many new opportunities that arise.
7. Look at different variations of the same idea. – Take the iPhone and iPad, for example. When you think about it, one is just a variation of the other. And both are based on million-dollar ideas.
8. Identify what works well in one place and apply it to another. – Find an idea that has already been tested and works, and think about how it can be applied in a different context. Take a niche formula and apply it to another niche. Or take the best features of one product and combine it with another product.
9. Put the puzzle together. – the creators of YouTube were not the creators of Flash. And they were not the ones who invented modern digital cameras that save video in a format convenient for playback on a computer. They didn't invent broadband Internet access, cheap web hosting, technology for embedding video on web pages, or technology for downloading content with one click. What they had was an idea to take all these existing pieces of the puzzle and put them together, creating an online video portal that became wildly popular.
10. Put a new spin on an existing idea. – A new take on an old idea can be a million-dollar idea, too. Take Facebook, for example – it wasn't the first major social network, but Mark Zuckerberg and his team added improvements to previous attempts that left competitors in the dust. So why not take an existing million-dollar idea and try giving it new meaning, new direction, and new life?
11. Turn a popular service into a recognizable and repeatable product. – A service turns into a product when it becomes recognizable and can change its owner. Here you can at least remember how Alienware and Dell started. Both companies began by simply collecting IBM-compatible computers, which they then began selling in branded cases with catchy branding as a finished product. If you manage to turn a popular service into a scalable, systematized, effective process, and start selling it successfully, consider yourself a million in your pocket, or even more than one.
12. Play with Opposites – When something becomes incredibly popular, its opposite often becomes popular, because many people don't like using what everyone else is using. When WordPress, Blogger, and Movable Type skyrocketed in popularity, allowing anyone with an internet connection to share long, detailed articles and blog posts with the world, Twitter and Tumblr came along and started the microblogging revolution – and their audience was people who preferred very short, polished posts. There are other examples – thousands of them! Always remember that the opposite of a million-dollar idea can, paradoxically, give birth to another million-dollar idea.
13. Look for problems and think how to solve them. – There are many different real problems in this world. Like the problems of a business owner who doesn't understand why his income is constantly falling. Or a golfer dreaming of creating the perfect shot. Or a person who started going bald at age 26. Or mothers whose children suffer from allergies. Or a person who bought a dog and doesn't know how to stop it from barking at night. By solving such problems, it is quite possible to earn millions.
14. Create new products that complement other successful products. – How much money do you think the makers of iPod, iPhone, and iPad cases make? Millions? Billions? What about the companies that made their fortunes making wall mounts for LCD and plasma TVs? You get the idea.
15. Keep it simple. – Never overcomplicate a good idea. Marketers have conducted many studies confirming that the greater the choice of products of the same brand that are similar in characteristics to a consumer, the less often he buys something. After all, it is always easier to choose the best product from three than from three hundred. If the average person has a hard time deciding on a purchase, most people will decide not to make it at all. So if you want to create a new product line, keep it simple and straightforward.
16. Use the resources and skills you already have. – Often, in order to achieve success, it's not so much about getting the right resources as using those you already have. Stevie Wonder was born blind, but he had remarkable hearing, and he turned it into a passion for music, and did it so successfully that he is now the proud owner of 25 Grammy awards. So if your new idea involves using your resources, skills and abilities, you are already head and shoulders above all your competitors.
17. Surround yourself with other thinkers. – Any person in a certain respect can be called a derivative of the people with whom he spends the most time. And if you interact a lot with negative people, they will influence you negatively. But if you choose a positive and smart environment, over time you will become much smarter and wiser than ever before. Find your tribe among the countless crowd around you, and work together to make all your lives better. Share ideas, exchange advice, and so on.
18. Approach what you do with enthusiasm. – Enthusiasm has been, is, and will be the foundation of creativity. Big, ambitious ideas blossom in our minds when you approach what you do with passion and enthusiasm. Few people are capable of coming up with innovative and revolutionary ideas in a field for which they do not have a real passion. But when your mind is stimulated by fundamental curiosity, your creativity soars and your motivation soars.
19. Accept constructive criticism, but ignore the naysayers. – When someone gives you negative feedback about your idea or product, remember that it doesn't matter how many people don't buy what you have, it matters how many do. No matter how smart you are or how good your idea is, there will always be people who will tell you that what you want to do is impossible, so don't even try. Or they, filled with envy, may even try to convince you that your idea or concept is so crazy that no one will be interested in it. If you meet such people in your life, don't try to convince them that you are right. It's better to forget that they exist, otherwise you will only waste your time and energy on them.
20. Let your ideas work, and don't lie dead weight! “A million-dollar idea is just a good idea that's been allowed to prove itself.” Both Google and Facebook hatched from the seeds of very ordinary ideas - "an accurate and fast search engine" and "a website where friends can keep in touch." Remember, neither of these two companies were the first in their chosen field. The ideas that led to their creation were not particularly breakthrough or revolutionary. They occurred to many people long before the creation of Google and Facebook. But the creators of these companies worked on their own ideas. They worked on them, developed them, and little by little they left all their competitors behind. Their success lies in the execution and development of ideas. Remember, it's not just the ideas themselves that matter, but what you do with them, and whether you do anything with them at all. Proper execution can help even the simplest idea become a million-dollar idea.
It's clear that we all wonder how their creators managed to come up with these ideas? Do they really just sit on their couch, meditate, and wait for a stroke of inspiration, or a lucky epiphany?
The truth is that spontaneity and luck have almost nothing to do with it.
In this article, we'll take a quick look at 20 tried-and-tested techniques that many of the most successful and smartest entrepreneurs use to create million-dollar ideas.
Ideas
1. Generate more ideas. - The more ideas you come up with, the more likely it is that one of them will be the million dollar idea.2. Make mistakes more often. – All bad and unsuccessful ideas become steps on the ladder leading to that very cherished idea. Sometimes, in order to succeed, you have to fail hundreds and thousands of times. Remember, no matter how many mistakes you make and no matter how slow your progress, you are still far ahead of those who didn't even try.
3. Consume information wisely. – Some of my friends think I waste so much time reading books and blogs. It's not true. It's what keeps me on the cutting edge. A mind filled with interesting information literally gushes with fresh ideas… and I've used the knowledge I gained this way to create several successful websites. When you consume new information and interact with new people, try to assume the role of a creator rather than a consumer. Million-dollar ideas and good ideas are all around you – you just have to discover them.
4. Focus on topics and ideas with a large potential reach. – Sure, a million dollars isn't a huge amount of money on a global scale, but it will seem like a huge amount if you're trying to make it in a small market with limited opportunity. You can put a returned Steve Jobs at the helm of your company, but if the maximum market size for it is 100 people worldwide, even he won't make you more than a few dollars. To make big money, you need a large demand in a market of significant size.
5. Make sure there is a place to make money in your future field of activity. – The raiders rob banks for a reason - they know that a lot of money is stored there. So before you get excited about an idea, do much less implementing it, just do a little market research. Make sure that this idea will at least theoretically allow you to earn the money you want. Who are your potential clients and consumers? How much money are they willing to spend on your idea? And so on.
6. Keep your eyes, ears, and mind wide open. – Often, failure to implement one idea opens the way to a new idea. Don't get so hungry on one failed attempt that you miss the many new opportunities that arise.
7. Look at different variations of the same idea. – Take the iPhone and iPad, for example. When you think about it, one is just a variation of the other. And both are based on million-dollar ideas.
8. Identify what works well in one place and apply it to another. – Find an idea that has already been tested and works, and think about how it can be applied in a different context. Take a niche formula and apply it to another niche. Or take the best features of one product and combine it with another product.
9. Put the puzzle together. – the creators of YouTube were not the creators of Flash. And they were not the ones who invented modern digital cameras that save video in a format convenient for playback on a computer. They didn't invent broadband Internet access, cheap web hosting, technology for embedding video on web pages, or technology for downloading content with one click. What they had was an idea to take all these existing pieces of the puzzle and put them together, creating an online video portal that became wildly popular.
10. Put a new spin on an existing idea. – A new take on an old idea can be a million-dollar idea, too. Take Facebook, for example – it wasn't the first major social network, but Mark Zuckerberg and his team added improvements to previous attempts that left competitors in the dust. So why not take an existing million-dollar idea and try giving it new meaning, new direction, and new life?
11. Turn a popular service into a recognizable and repeatable product. – A service turns into a product when it becomes recognizable and can change its owner. Here you can at least remember how Alienware and Dell started. Both companies began by simply collecting IBM-compatible computers, which they then began selling in branded cases with catchy branding as a finished product. If you manage to turn a popular service into a scalable, systematized, effective process, and start selling it successfully, consider yourself a million in your pocket, or even more than one.
12. Play with Opposites – When something becomes incredibly popular, its opposite often becomes popular, because many people don't like using what everyone else is using. When WordPress, Blogger, and Movable Type skyrocketed in popularity, allowing anyone with an internet connection to share long, detailed articles and blog posts with the world, Twitter and Tumblr came along and started the microblogging revolution – and their audience was people who preferred very short, polished posts. There are other examples – thousands of them! Always remember that the opposite of a million-dollar idea can, paradoxically, give birth to another million-dollar idea.
13. Look for problems and think how to solve them. – There are many different real problems in this world. Like the problems of a business owner who doesn't understand why his income is constantly falling. Or a golfer dreaming of creating the perfect shot. Or a person who started going bald at age 26. Or mothers whose children suffer from allergies. Or a person who bought a dog and doesn't know how to stop it from barking at night. By solving such problems, it is quite possible to earn millions.
14. Create new products that complement other successful products. – How much money do you think the makers of iPod, iPhone, and iPad cases make? Millions? Billions? What about the companies that made their fortunes making wall mounts for LCD and plasma TVs? You get the idea.
15. Keep it simple. – Never overcomplicate a good idea. Marketers have conducted many studies confirming that the greater the choice of products of the same brand that are similar in characteristics to a consumer, the less often he buys something. After all, it is always easier to choose the best product from three than from three hundred. If the average person has a hard time deciding on a purchase, most people will decide not to make it at all. So if you want to create a new product line, keep it simple and straightforward.
16. Use the resources and skills you already have. – Often, in order to achieve success, it's not so much about getting the right resources as using those you already have. Stevie Wonder was born blind, but he had remarkable hearing, and he turned it into a passion for music, and did it so successfully that he is now the proud owner of 25 Grammy awards. So if your new idea involves using your resources, skills and abilities, you are already head and shoulders above all your competitors.
17. Surround yourself with other thinkers. – Any person in a certain respect can be called a derivative of the people with whom he spends the most time. And if you interact a lot with negative people, they will influence you negatively. But if you choose a positive and smart environment, over time you will become much smarter and wiser than ever before. Find your tribe among the countless crowd around you, and work together to make all your lives better. Share ideas, exchange advice, and so on.
18. Approach what you do with enthusiasm. – Enthusiasm has been, is, and will be the foundation of creativity. Big, ambitious ideas blossom in our minds when you approach what you do with passion and enthusiasm. Few people are capable of coming up with innovative and revolutionary ideas in a field for which they do not have a real passion. But when your mind is stimulated by fundamental curiosity, your creativity soars and your motivation soars.
19. Accept constructive criticism, but ignore the naysayers. – When someone gives you negative feedback about your idea or product, remember that it doesn't matter how many people don't buy what you have, it matters how many do. No matter how smart you are or how good your idea is, there will always be people who will tell you that what you want to do is impossible, so don't even try. Or they, filled with envy, may even try to convince you that your idea or concept is so crazy that no one will be interested in it. If you meet such people in your life, don't try to convince them that you are right. It's better to forget that they exist, otherwise you will only waste your time and energy on them.
20. Let your ideas work, and don't lie dead weight! “A million-dollar idea is just a good idea that's been allowed to prove itself.” Both Google and Facebook hatched from the seeds of very ordinary ideas - "an accurate and fast search engine" and "a website where friends can keep in touch." Remember, neither of these two companies were the first in their chosen field. The ideas that led to their creation were not particularly breakthrough or revolutionary. They occurred to many people long before the creation of Google and Facebook. But the creators of these companies worked on their own ideas. They worked on them, developed them, and little by little they left all their competitors behind. Their success lies in the execution and development of ideas. Remember, it's not just the ideas themselves that matter, but what you do with them, and whether you do anything with them at all. Proper execution can help even the simplest idea become a million-dollar idea.
