Step 2: The "What"
Quick steps:
1 - Create a list of ideas based on your interests
2 - Go through each item and decide whether it's a hobby or a career
3 - Add ease of startup and interest columns; score each from 1-10
4 - Total these two columns, then order by this total
Now that we've identified the WHY (our motivations for embarking on this journey), it's time to focus on WHAT we can do to achieve these goals.
Using your list of motivations as a set of principles, you can now start brainstorming ideas which help you achieve them. For example, I wanted to escape the office environment and work outdoors, so jobs like window cleaning, gardening and even dog walking were all first to be added to my list.
At this stage, it really doesn't matter how viable you think these ideas are as a business, we're simply getting ideas onto paper; this often provides inspiration for other ideas you may have overlooked. Include anything and everything which adheres to your principles; there's no point adding ideas which go against these principles... otherwise you'll be repeating this exercise before too long!
You can also think about things you enjoy: What do you like to do in your spare time? What do you like to watch? What do you like to eat and drink?
This type of brainstorm is great, as it will not only help you think of ideas but these ideas will naturally be related to things you're actually interested in and you'll find yourself more motivated to succeed.
You can also start searching through websites which sell existing businesses; this will give you a flavour of what other people are doing and may well furnish you with a treasure you'd previously overlooked. If you're in the UK, why not try www.businessesforsale.co.uk - it's free and has been a great source of inspiration for me.
ACTION: Make a list of business ideas which roughly compliments your WHY list from Step 1. Nothing is out of bounds, write down anything and everything.
If you're still struggling for inspiration, you can take a look at my list of nearly 160 ideas:
Jack-in-the-Job: My List of Ideas
The next step is to go through each idea and deciding whether you'd class it as a "hobby" or a "career".
I've defined a hobby as something which doesn't require much time and is either free or very cheap to start. The idea is that you can start on these immediately - even before you quit your day job. You've got nothing to lose, except your time and effort. Since we have our motivations firmly at the forefront of our mind, we don't mind expending this energy.
Conversely, my definition of a career is one which will take substantial time, money and/or effort to start. These ideas will need significant ongoing commitment and will more than likely require you to quit an existing job before starting.
ACTION: Add a Hobby/Career column and choose which one of these each of your ideas would be.
Now we have our list of ideas (split by hobbies and careers) we can start filtering on those which are easiest to start and also which we find interesting.
(e.g. a Blog would be a 9 or 10 as it's FREE and SIMPLE to start. Buying a house to rent out would be a 1 or 2, as it's EXPENSIVE and COMPLEX to start)
ACTION: Add three more columns to your list of ideas; one for ease of startup, one interest and another for total.
By the end, your list should look something like this (hopefully with a few more rows!):
1 - Create a list of ideas based on your interests
2 - Go through each item and decide whether it's a hobby or a career
3 - Add ease of startup and interest columns; score each from 1-10
4 - Total these two columns, then order by this total
Now that we've identified the WHY (our motivations for embarking on this journey), it's time to focus on WHAT we can do to achieve these goals.
Using your list of motivations as a set of principles, you can now start brainstorming ideas which help you achieve them. For example, I wanted to escape the office environment and work outdoors, so jobs like window cleaning, gardening and even dog walking were all first to be added to my list.
At this stage, it really doesn't matter how viable you think these ideas are as a business, we're simply getting ideas onto paper; this often provides inspiration for other ideas you may have overlooked. Include anything and everything which adheres to your principles; there's no point adding ideas which go against these principles... otherwise you'll be repeating this exercise before too long!
You can also think about things you enjoy: What do you like to do in your spare time? What do you like to watch? What do you like to eat and drink?
This type of brainstorm is great, as it will not only help you think of ideas but these ideas will naturally be related to things you're actually interested in and you'll find yourself more motivated to succeed.
You can also start searching through websites which sell existing businesses; this will give you a flavour of what other people are doing and may well furnish you with a treasure you'd previously overlooked. If you're in the UK, why not try www.businessesforsale.co.uk - it's free and has been a great source of inspiration for me.
ACTION: Make a list of business ideas which roughly compliments your WHY list from Step 1. Nothing is out of bounds, write down anything and everything.
If you're still struggling for inspiration, you can take a look at my list of nearly 160 ideas:
Jack-in-the-Job: My List of Ideas
The next step is to go through each idea and deciding whether you'd class it as a "hobby" or a "career".
I've defined a hobby as something which doesn't require much time and is either free or very cheap to start. The idea is that you can start on these immediately - even before you quit your day job. You've got nothing to lose, except your time and effort. Since we have our motivations firmly at the forefront of our mind, we don't mind expending this energy.
Conversely, my definition of a career is one which will take substantial time, money and/or effort to start. These ideas will need significant ongoing commitment and will more than likely require you to quit an existing job before starting.
ACTION: Add a Hobby/Career column and choose which one of these each of your ideas would be.
Now we have our list of ideas (split by hobbies and careers) we can start filtering on those which are easiest to start and also which we find interesting.
(e.g. a Blog would be a 9 or 10 as it's FREE and SIMPLE to start. Buying a house to rent out would be a 1 or 2, as it's EXPENSIVE and COMPLEX to start)
ACTION: Add three more columns to your list of ideas; one for ease of startup, one interest and another for total.
By the end, your list should look something like this (hopefully with a few more rows!):
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