How To Create New Business Concepts From Old Ideas

When it comes to the world of business you probably think that there is no room. It's all been done before, so what is the point in trying, right? A lot of things have been done before. That doesn't mean you throw in the towel and hang up your entrepreneurial dreams.

Rather than feel jaded that someone else has beat you to the punch on your business idea, get creative and think of what "else" you can do. Take your idea, along with another business idea, and create an entirely new concept. This is a little technique that I like to call the "the blend strategy."

Get Mixing

With the blend strategy you are literally taking the best parts of two different business ideas and merging them together to create a new concept that people are going to sit up and notice.

You may not even realize the number of businesses out there that have gotten their start by mixing together ideas like this, but there are plenty of them around. Take the ever growing in popularity Groupon. The Chicago-based company got its start in 2008 and already has over 70 million subscribers who log on each day looking to see what the daily deal is.

Groupon mixed together the idea of coupons and social media. Both of these concepts are widely popular, with local restaurant and service coupons often coming to your home mailbox, and millions of people getting on the social media bandwagon. Groupon doesn't have to do a lot to get people to sign up, because the deal itself reels in the subscribers and buyers, and if it is a good deal it goes viral, helping to rack up even more subscribers.

Opportunistic Mixing

No matter what you do in life, there are business ideas floating around that can be mixed together or changed to come up with a new concept. Fresh Healthy Vending, a San Diego-based company, took the idea of vending machines and all the news on unhealthy eating choices and obesity and created a whole new concept. Their line of vending machines features only natural, healthy foods, including fruits and vegetables.

Another great one is Cengage Learning (that I wish was around while I was in college). They took the idea of college students needing to save money and the fact that college professors often require books that are hardly ever cracked open during the semester and they came up with a whole new concept. Students can go to their website and download only the chapters they need from the required textbook, paying around $7 per chapter.

Look, Listen, Leap

If you have dreams of owning your own business then don't let the idea that other businesses exist keep you from doing it. New concepts are always going to be welcome, tried out, and evaluated. But the great thing about the blend strategy is that you are not having to come up with something new, you are just taking two ideas that already exist and mixing them together to create something new.

So look around, listen to what is going on and what is missing in your community or beyond, and then take the leap to mixed those ideas together to create a new concept. Ideas are everywhere, you just need to start seeing what would make a good fit for a new business concept, before someone else sees it and beats you to it!

Thanks to Mike Michalowicz / OpenForum