Ideas are as hard as you make them

 

Coming up with a good business idea can seem very daunting but in reality people do it every day and indeed some people can be serial entrepreneurs and have business ideas all the time.

 

Entrepreneurs get their ideas from many different sources.

 

What, for instance, possessed a guy called Marvin Stone to invent the drinking straw we know today?

 

Well according to David Ellyard in his book "Who Invented What When", Marvin Stone is reputed to have found that the rye grasses that had been used up to 1888 disintegrated quickly and left a taste in drinks so he used his existing skills as a paper cigarette holder manufacturer to develop a paper straw and when he experimented further he found that if he waxed the paper it lasted longer! 

​

Similarly a Dallas typist called Bette Graham invented what we know as correcting fluid or Tippex type solution in her kitchen to correct errors on typing as otherwise she would have to re-type complete pages just to correct one error - typewriters were very unforgiving machines at the time. 

 

Below you can find information on the phases you will go through when designing, marketing and selling your project, as well as lots of exercises that will help you come up with ideas and of course some guidelines for writing a business plan!