Start-ups have been popping out everywhere lately. You have heard of successful entrepreneurs like Mark Zuckerberg, a college dropout who started Facebook and is now one of the wealthiest people in the world. And then there is Jack Ma, who got rejected by Harvard ten times and got refused to work for a job in KFC. Later on, he founded Alibaba and now also considered one of the wealthiest people on earth.

You might be wondering how these people have excellently executed their ideas. How they even got the Eureka! moment in the first place.  

Just like most entrepreneurs, knowing the right profitable business idea does not mean it is easy. You will struggle a lot. It will make you want to give up. While there may be millions of ideas out there, what is more painful is putting everything into action.   

Here is a list of how business people found their best business ideas:

1. Experiencing something that frustrated them, and they wanted it solved.  

An excellent example of this is Richard Turere in Kenya, Africa. He needed to protect his family’s cattle, so he invented “lion lights,” a fence made of solar charging cells and flashlight parts that scared the lions away.   

You may be frustrated with how horrible the traffic is in your city, or how the amount of plastics being used is starting to ruin the world. How can you solve this? Write down your ideas, no matter how silly they are. Who knows, you might invent the world’s next best thing.  

Like what an English proverb says, “Necessity is the mother of invention.”  

2. Innovation  

You might be using a product or purchased services that do not meet your standards. Perhaps their customer service is not the best out there. So, you innovate, create, and improve the changes that you want to be changed and voila! You got an idea, but an even better one for this matter!  

3. Passion  

Correct me if I am wrong, but you must have heard “Follow your passion” at least once in your life.   

Pursuing your passion and sticking with it and eventually reaping the benefits is not easy. A good example is Bill Gates, who learned to program using a PDP 10 computer in his school during lunch break. Years later, he used his free time working in his garage, and suddenly, Microsoft was born.   

If there is something you can learn from this, it is successful people make time for things they are passionate about. They learn it, and they make time for it.  

4. Ideas from nature  

The majority of the products and technology used today harms the environment, which then leads to global warming.   

Lately, many entrepreneurs are switching to zero-waste principles and sustainability, which have been creating a massive impact in terms of pushing people to make conscious choices with the stuff that they use and even with the food that they eat. And so far, businesses with environmental causes are much more loved by everyone.  

5. Listening to their customers  

If you are already a business person, you know that the best sources of ideas are your customers, as they will give you an idea of what products they want to purchase, what services they want to have, what features they wish they could have in a particular application. All you need to do is ask and listen!   

They can also be your best testers. Say, you have a new product that you can make them try before you sell it out to the market. With their feedback, you would know exactly what they need and how you can improve it.   

With this lockdown, take advantage of the time that you have. Write down your ideas on a piece of paper. Remember, Isaac Newton discovered Calculus and the Laws of Motion when he quarantined himself during the plague. Do you think you could be the next Isaac Newton? Only YOU can find out!