Where have you found inspiration for a business idea?

The first thing is to have passion for your idea that you will work on it for free. The second thing is figure out if people will actually pay you for it. This is the hard part since you really never know the worth of your product until it's actually built and people buy it.

My general rule on ideas is that they have to solve a problem that people are having or they will soon have. I don't really care about the technology "coolness" nor if it's the latest, greatest trend -- just that it solves a problem people will pay for.

As an aside, your method of having the idea and then running the numbers is spot on. That's the way to really vet the cool idea from the make money idea.

May I suggest Rob Walling "Start small, Stay Small" book?

The start of book deals with the task of selecting a suitable market and testing it for viability without spending a fortune (and also not needing to use a spreadsheet). Its not the only route, but even despite the fact that I have loads of potential business ideas I had never thought of formulating how I arrive at them in the way Rob outlines.

As another poster suggests, the idea needs to come from you and for you to beleive in the idea (even if you use a method like Rob suggests to find the idea). No point just following a business idea you don't beleive in or find boring (that is why I don't work in the communications - its vital but I don't find it interesting, so I look elsewhere).

This concept is called uninformed optimism vs informed pessimism. At start because we have no or very less information we tend be very optimist, but as the time passes and we get more and more information we start seeing issues and our optimism start turning into pessimism.

If we keep on doing this we will never do anything because issues are inherent in any ideas.

The best we can do is to turn informed pessimism into informed optimism i.e., plan for the issues and start.

But do remember if we think and think the chances are we won't start the work. Thinking is important, idea is important but more important is the execution.

Business is all about taking risks, and also of importance, patience. Start small and wait for growth. Maybe your way of getting the business partners isn't the right way or still your friends aren't entrepreneurial. Get the idea, have a business plan and get going. Only start small to cater for a fallback. Gud lack.

I can definitely relate to your question as I struggled many years trying to figure out what would be considered good idea and good time to quit. Truth of the matter in my experience is that you really have to try or you will never know. I read many books, blogs, articles and talked with friends but I always came to same conclusion as you did that it was never the right time or made justification that it was not good idea. Untilled one day I realized that time is short and i just have to do it.

Here are things I learned hope that it helps you in thinking about your next big decision as these are from my experience.

1. It is very diffult to jump off the bridge; giving up regular salary is hard.
2. When you are hungry your servival instinct will kick in you will be able to accomplish things that are otherwise was not possible when you had full-time job; at least that is what you thought :)
3. Rewards are great but so does the failure. Get ready to fail.
4. You will not be making same amount of money when you are in salary; at least not for a while.
5. You will begin to see many opportunities for making money and your original idea good or bad will evolve into something that will make money.
6. Expect to work long hours.
7. You must win your family support before jumping off the salary life because only your family and friend can understand what you are going through and in real tough time they will provide sheerer.
8. When you succeed in even little the feeling you get is amazing and there is nothing like it.
9. Pursue thing you are good and you like doing.
10. I have many times proved the numbers and prediction my CPA disclosed to me by following my passion.

Hope this helps :) good luck.

Build business models that make any interaction, real or digital, faster, cheaper, or easier. Inspiration and passion are not needed.

Starting a company is going to be one of the hardest things you do, and you may not be prepared for it. The general idea behind starting a startup is that you're taking 40 years of your work life, and boiling it down into 4.

This quote by Joe Kraus (Cofounder - Excite) just about sums up how you will feel:

“The hardest part in a startup is that you wake up one morning and you feel great about the day, and you think, “We’re kicking ass.” And then you wake up the next morning and you think “We’re dead.” And literally nothing’s changed. You haven’t made some big deal, you haven’t sold something new. Maybe you wrote a few lines of code over the course of that last day. Maybe you had some conversations with people, but nothing’s really moved. It’s completely irrational, but it’s exactly what you go through.”

Here are some questions I would ask myself before starting any new idea:

1. Am I passionate about the idea that I have come up with. Have I have been thinking about it for a long time (over a month)? Can I not fall asleep because I am excited everynight about the idea?
2. Who else is working on this idea (there will be someone)? Do I have the skills to pull it off? Can I find people to help me with my weaknesses?
3. Am I able to deal with responsibility? Am I a good communicator? Am I empathetic and can I relate to my customers?

This isn't an all encompassing list, but i would definitely evaluate myself as a person before embarking out on a new company. A lot of it is just being able to take the hardships in stride and not getting discouraged when things go wrong (which almost everything will).