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Wanna be independent and successful, or part of a winning team that brings a great business idea to market?
The opportunity to start and grow a successful business continues to grow. But several key things need to be factored into your business idea strategy in order to have a solid foundation for success, including:
- The nature of your business idea
- Funding and money projections
- The marketplace and competition
- How will your idea, product, or service be different, better, new, or innovative
- Growth obstacles
- Hiring and staffing
- Your business plan
This article will address key factors to help you decide if your business idea is solid, how to ensure it is innovative and stands out, key factors for success, and 30 business ideas that could support further growth, development, investment, and innovation.
Does innovation matter in business?
According to Forrester, innovative businesses grow 260 percent faster than average businesses. In this case, innovation means taking something that already exists and improving it, or creating something entirely new.
The key to business ideas is to understand what needs a new or innovative idea will fulfill. The following are 10 innovative business ideas and areas that need further exploration and development for a variety of reasons, including lack of innovation thus far, a growing need for change, growing demand, and more.
30 Ideas to Support Business Innovation
If you have a great business idea, that’s a good start. But the key to success is in developing that idea enough to prove it works, then to be able to execute against your plan, and then scale the business.
Before all of that, it’s good to look in more detail at your idea, specifically, the nature of your idea. If you are planning to launch a business that already exists, is your idea offering to improve how things are done already, or creating an entirely new way to do it? If so, it is an innovative approach and your idea will stand out.
Does it solve a pain or resolve a concern or flawed process in a new or innovative way? Is it cheaper, better, faster, easier?
Information or education business innovation
Because of the ease of information communication and consumption, many of the most profitable business ideas and small business ideas today center around an information or education business model. These could be the perfect business idea if you are an expert or know others who are an expert and can offer an online course or online courses.
These could include teaching people:
- How to start and run an email marketing business
- How to utilize artificial intelligence for your business
- How to create passive income from home
Health or medical innovation
As the population of many areas ages, the opportunity for innovation in health or medical solutions continues to grow. If you have an internet connection, your innovative business ideas can grow into a viable revenue opportunity.
The most successful small businesses often need a small capital investment, grant, or loan, but funding is possible to obtain, even at an early stage.
a drawback to consider is your technical expertise in health or medical fields. If lacking, bring on advisors to help fill the gaps in your knowledge. Regardless, there are many health or medical startup ideas that could thrive with the right execution.
These could include:
- Medical courier service
- Online stores for pharmacy orders or health products
- Online health information libraries, offered also through SMS text and mobile solutions
- An innovative health monitoring application
- Modern technology to offer multiple clients health information, health and wellness training, and access to nutrition during their own hours
Financial or money innovation
A great startup idea that could be extremely profitable is in providing people insights and access to money or financial advice. This requires building a list of customers through online events, an online store, digital marketing, and content marketing.
You could create your own brand or decrease personal liability by reselling someone else’s existing brand through an affiliate offer. This may not be one of the easiest online businesses but it is a good business idea. As a new business, these often grow through word of mouth and social media, as well as traditional methods like email marketing, events, and mail.
An innovative business idea in this area does carry some personal liability to represent claims correctly, and carry all applicable licenses and certifications. But to be your own boss and keep your initial investment low, try working with a few prospects first and scale later.
These could include:
- Personal training in stocks, bonds, commodities, or trading applications that offer innovative niche solutions or cover niche markets that bigger offerings ignore
- A retail business offering advice and planning (certification mat be required) offered through an innovative way, such as an app, or other new experience delivery model
- Helping coach traditional businesses, business owners, college students, and others in your local area about the innovative startup ideas for small business owners that exist and what these local businesses and people can do to improve their financial situation.
- An online course, supported through social media and digital marketing, that helps stay-at-home moms with financial advice about how to create income at home or save money on any budget. This is like career coaching in a way. All they will need is high-speed internet to access the courses and training you offer.
Home-based businesses for innovation
The trend for home-based business ideas is flourishing. People everywhere want great business ideas and the most innovative startup ideas to help them earn more income.
This field of opportunity is wide, and the best small business ideas offer low startup costs and a low-cost way of starting a business without a heavy expense for things like a costly store inventory or a gas-guzzling but reliable vehicle.
These innovative home-based business ideas could include:
- A cleaning service or clean-up solutions for business or home
- Helping pet owners keep pets healthy, safe, exercised, and immunized
- Digital marketing services for small or large businesses
- SEO services (search engine optimization)
- Virtual assistant services or a virtual assistant app for business
- Social media assistant
- Small business idea workshops, innovative business ideas classes, and other types of education
- Professional organizer (for home or business)
- Personal shopper for fashion trends
- Start their own business as a web developer. This is an easy innovative startup idea and small business idea with low capital investment. All that is needed is basic skills training and listing yourself on apps like Upwork
- A personal shopper solution or personal shopper app
- Content marketing that offers a low-cost alternative to help businesses get the content they need, be a creative outlet for their needs, help write and execute marketing
- Career coaching
- Food truck or food truck digital marketing or social media marketing solution
- Medical courier service
- Event planner small business
- Business plan writer for business owners or anyone starting a business. This could also be offered as an online course and promoted through digital marketing and social media
- Other online business ideas and small business ideas for someone to promote great business ideas
Online stores innovation
With a good internet connection and low startup costs, an online store is a favorable option to consider. Starting a business online — especially an online store — required savvy marketing, social media promotion, the ability to see analytics for your online store, and good online business ideas.
To keep low-cost commitments, many retailers online negotiate favorable terms, drop shipping, and other ways to minimize cash outlays.
According to Statista, “over the last few years, e-commerce has become an indispensable part of the global retail framework. Like many other industries, the retail landscape has undergone a substantial transformation following the advent of the internet, and thanks to the ongoing digitalization of modern life, consumers from virtually every country now profit from the perks of online transactions. “
“As internet access and adoption are rapidly increasing worldwide, the number of digital buyers keeps climbing every year. In 2020, over two billion people purchased goods or services online, and during the same year, e-retail sales surpassed 4.2 trillion U.S. dollars worldwide.” Source: https://www.statista.com/topics/871/online-shopping/
Your online store list of business ideas could include:
- Online retail through app or hybrid online store and brick and mortar store
- Your own business capturing leads or marketing for other online stores, working as an affiliate for them where they deliver the product and you get paid to bring in customers. You do this through creating your own online content marketing or digital marketing
- Your small business or list of business ideas could include innovation for low cost business services, such as copy writing, creative development, video or other marketing services. Why? Because products are often already listed on many online stores, but services aren’t.
Small business ideas and profitable business ideas driven by online stores today require strong SEO services, social media, and digital marketing. Any small business should also have a business plan, technology investment to bring the online store to life (the Cloud is a great option), and an innovative approach to showcase the products, services, or solutions.
Funding
The initial investment you may need for your business idea can come from various sources. The latest statistics show that there are 32.5 million small businesses in the U.S., which account for 99.9 percent of all U.S. businesses (SBA, 2021). The Small Business Administration (SBA) defines a small business as a firm that has fewer than 500 employees.
These business idea funding sources may include:
- Your own business line of credit
- Personal investment
- Seed or start-up money from friends or family
- Angel investors
- Venture capital investors
- Banks
- Credit unions
- Local government agencies that have relief funds or free money to fund your business idea
- SR&ED tax credits
Read the Boast article: Where to Get Free Money to Start a Business
Conclusion
Whatever your small business idea, get inspired and try to think mostly about the next steps required to start working the idea. Thinking too much about the end result—especially if it is too grand—can hurt your execution.
To create your own business from your list of small business ideas, start first with your business ideas plan, then execute the first steps to build out and prove the model.
Most businesses fail because of poor understanding of competition, lack of knowing if customers will buy, or lack of operational execution. Having your own business can be a total joy if you do it correctly. Good luck!
