The Graduate Student Entrepreneur
The first step in starting a business is having an idea. I can't teach you how to come up with a great idea, but I can show you how to build the confidence and drive to make it happen. When I decided that I wanted to start my own company, it wasn't without preparation. Sure, maybe if someone had asked me about running my own company when I was in high school or college, I would have told them that one day yes, but at the time it was not something that really crossed my mind. While attending Boston University for both undergraduate and graduate school (all while working full-time), things started changing for me and my ideas on entrepreneurship began taking shape. Starting your own business isn't easy, but it is totally doable.
Coming up with an idea for a new business should be the easiest part of starting a business. In fact, I would say that 90% of running a company is dealing with logistics and 10% is coming up with the initial idea. The challenge lies in going from having an idea to actually making it happen. It can be a very tricky process getting from point A to point B if you don't have the right set of skills. If you take one thing away from reading this post today, please let it be this: take time for yourself and think about your long-term goals and priorities. That means allocating time every day (even if only 5 minutes) to do whatever it takes to make sure that when life throws things at you that you will know how to handle them effectively and confidently because your mind will always be in check knowing where you want things go in life both personally and professionally!
Where Did My Idea Come From?
I've had this question asked quite frequently: "Where did my [insert company name here] come from?" It's hard trying to explain how I came up with ideas for my companies when they vary so much in such different fields such as education technology, advertising technology, renewable energy development & marketing, etc. It's not like I had an idea and went with it. The more I think about different companies I've started, the more ideas come to mind. But how do you start your own company? It all starts with a simple question: What do you like to do?
I really enjoy writing and am good at it (at least that's what my teachers have told me)! So one day before going into work, I sat down with a notebook and just wrote about whatever came to mind for an hour or so. As the thoughts were flowing out of my head onto paper, a few things stood out as something that would be a great idea for a new company. After some brainstorming, those initial ideas turned into real business opportunities!
Think About Your Long-Term Goals & Priorities
Like most people in today's world, there are always going to be so many things competing for our attention everyday! There will always be things coming up which can throw us off course from our long-term goals if we aren't careful enough to keep them in check every single day. Personally speaking, this is something that takes time and energy away from doing what is most important: working on yourself as an entrepreneur! This means having the right mindset when making decisions which could affect your ability to reach your goals or priorities later on down the road. This is something that I have had to learn over time. As someone who has been in the corporate world for the last few years, I have been constantly bombarded by other people's ideas and thoughts on what they think you should be doing with your life. My natural reaction was to do whatever it took to please everyone else around me or just go along with whatever was going on in order to make everyone happy, even if it didn't make sense personally or professionally. That's because I didn't know how important it is to take time away from everything and put myself first everyday!
Think about long-term goals and priorities: What does success look like for you? It could be a very simple answer such as wanting a bigger house, or more money! Whatever your answer may be, that is where everything begins; this will help guide you when making decisions later down the road which could affect your ability to reach those goals! Whenever there are competing interests (something happening at work vs. something happening in my personal life), my instinctive response would always be "I'm not sure what I should do." Once I started putting myself first and thinking about my own personal needs and wants, sometimes those responses changed: "This isn't good enough," or "This isn't really helping me reach my goal," etc. I went to business school to learn a lot about how to run a successful company, but I also learned so much more about how to deal with every day decisions and prioritize what matters most in my life.
Think About What You're Good At
Once you know your long-term goals and priorities (which should be the starting point for any business), you need to start thinking about what you like doing. Think of something that you really enjoy doing or that makes you feel good when doing it: writing, selling, working out, etc.
I may not be able to answer your question about where ideas for different companies come from, but hopefully I've given you some insight into how I came up with the idea for my own companies. The most important thing to know if you want to start your own company is that it takes time and effort. You need to make sure that you are putting yourself first, working on what matters most in life, and making decisions which will put you on the right track towards reaching your goals!
