“Capital isn’t that important in business. Experience isn’t that important. You can get both of these things. What is important is ideas. “– Harvey S. Firestone.

If some people are asked to mention the first thing that is needed to start a business, we would not be wrong to say that they would say that money or capital. It is not bad to think like this before in the past, you needed money to be able to start a business. Though money is very important when starting a business, the first and most important thing that a person needs to start a business today is having a good idea.

This is the starting point. Find out here how to get ideas for your business. Getting good ideas for a Start-up is not as difficult as it is made to be. The problem is that many of us have been brought up in an environment where we are made to believe that coming up with good ideas is the exclusive domain of “creative people.” Creative people are traditionally said to be particularly gifted, artistic, imaginative, inventive, etc. But that is not the case because everybody is creative to some extent.

The traditional belief is that not many people are creative. However, this is not true as every human being is creative or imaginative to some degree, except that you are not conscious of it. Some people may be better in certain areas than others, which may help, but it does not mean that those that are not so endowed cannot develop such capabilities if they want to.

Entrepreneurs See Problems as Opportunities

One of the main differences between entrepreneurs and others is that while other people see problems and do not like them, entrepreneurs see opportunities when they see problems. So, such “problems” become a source of generating ideas. In other words, they turn problems into opportunities, and through self-belief and confidence, they do not need to know all the answers or how it is going to end. They are motivated to take action to do something about how to solve the problem. Without a problem to be solved, the business idea is just another idea, as nobody is going to pay for what he or she does not need.

There are many methods of generating startup ideas that can be found on the Internet. This site is not going to go into such technicalities. Many ideas are generated by people when they least expect, for example, there is a musician that was interviewed and he said that he gets his musical ideas while using the toilet. He keeps a journal in the toilet in case he needs it. Others may have ideas while driving sleeping or gardening etc., but the most important thing is writing down the idea.

Drucker’s Seven Sources of Innovative Opportunity

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management states “Innovation does not come as a tempest but with the rustling of the wind” This shows that contrary to the traditionally held belief, innovative ideas are not only the ones leading to new knowledge or the big new thing, but ideas that bring systematic changes such as the redesign of a process or a product, a response to the unexpected, or a change in demographics or popular perception. Innovation that generates the greatest impact is not often revolutionary or an invention of a new product, but a change in an existing business model that creates consumer demand.

Drucker identifies “Seven Sources of Innovative Opportunity”. Drucker is of the opinion that purposeful and systematic innovation starts with the recognition and analysis of opportunities. According to him, the first four lie within the business or industry. Though they are basically “symptoms”, they are reliable indicators of changes that have already taken place or which can be made to occur with little effort. The second set involves changes outside the business or industry.

High Reliability and Sources Within the Business or Industry	Low Reliability and Changes Outside the Enterprise or Industry
Unexpected Successes and Unexpected Failures	Changes in Demographics
Incongruities	Changes in Meaning and Perception
Process Needs/Necessity	New Knowledge
Changes in Industry and Market Structure

Source: Source: Drucker’s Seven Sources of Innovative Opportunity

We are not going to go through the steps in detail here, but it is a very good source for generating business ideas for a startup or new business. There is no difference in principle between innovation and entrepreneurship. Innovation may be defined as successfully exploiting an idea and turning it into commercial value or social value to change lives. This may be something completely new or an improvement to an old thing or process that adds more value to it. According to Drucker, “innovation is a specific tool of entrepreneurs…… and they need to know and apply the principles of successful innovation”. This means that the same sources above can be used to generate good start-up ideas.

In his book “Innovate or Die”, Professor Jack Maston of Penn State University states “…ideas are the raw material for innovation and must be captured on paper and transferred into Idea Journal.” In other words, he is recommending that if we are interested in turning our ideas into innovation, we should have an Idea Journal, a book or a method for recording our ideas. This is the only way of knowing that the idea exists so that it can help us to investigate the idea further and take it through the innovation process. An idea that remains in the head still remains an idea unless it is tested and implemented through the innovation process.