Coming up with an idea
My first task for my “Starting a Business” class was to think of a business I wanted to work on for the entire semester. I brainstormed for about a week and half about potential ideas. I found the most useful formula for plausible ideas came from combining three things:
- Something I’m interested in
- Something I know how to do (or at least have a clue about)
- Something that people will pay for
In the end I settled on an e-commerce website that sells consumer electronics. I’ve always been interested in gadgets and gizmos so consumer electronics matched that interest. A large part of my current job can be categorised as “web stuff”. While my skills are much more refined on the marketing and content side, I understand the programming side enough to be dangerous. So, creating an e-commerce website isn’t too much of a stretch for the something I know how to do category. In order to figure out something people would pay for I needed to find a good angle about purchasing consumer electronics. We’ll explore that in the next post.
James VanDyke is the author of this blog. During the work week you can find me in the E-Marketing team at SMU in Dallas where I create presentations and do assorted web stuff. I recently completed my MBA with a concentration in Marketing. At night, I hang out with my wife, read magazines and walk our dog Tigerman.
Hi James,
I just came across your blog and thought I’d make a comment … Anyway I was just curious about what you came up with for the consumer electronics e-commerce store. …. since there’s soo many of these online stores nowadays….
Arfeen, Thanks for stopping by I’ll try to post the next one in my series in the next day or two.
The short answer is I need to find someone with some sourcing experience to make it work. I haven’t found that person yet.