Finding problems faced by majority to start a business

How can I find such problems so as to offer a solution ans start a business? I do not have so many friends to do the survey.

lotsofmoney said:

How can I find such problems so as to offer a solution ans start a business?

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Start here, this is a problem to which you have to find the solution.
Since your business revolves around this, how would you do it?

breakcode said:

Start here, this is a problem to which you have to find the solution.
Since your business revolves around this, how would you do it?

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Which problem are you talking about? I am asking about finding a problem faced by a large group of people.

Marketing and being innovative in their respective marketplaces.

Most are at least semi-skilled at what they wish to do in business, but not skilled in marketing... or understand the need for marketing.

An alternative approach...

Quick practical strategy

ID new businesses and contact them telling them you wish to start a business in their industry and wonder if you could have just 3 minutes of their time to ask them three quick questions.

Absolutely no selling.

Do this for for industries that you would like to work in and help and see what common topics/ issues surface.

Find solutions to these problems and then go back to the businesses who spoke with you and again ask for feedback and, if appropriate, offer a discount/ special to them as a thank you for helping you get started ;-)

Is it as easy as this?
Yes

Is it easy getting your first customers?
Yes, if you do your research and ID real problems and offer real solutions.

the first step of finding a solution.. is to describe "exactly" what the problem is!

@pj777777 gave you a decent starting point for your market research.

But, in my experience the biggest problem people who start their first business have is they dont actually know how to setup and run a business properly. However, try telling them that!

For example people who open a restaurant typically think all they need to be/hire is a good cook. People who download wordpress and a few themes now think they can run a web design agency. Or they read a few blog posts and now think they can set up as a business consultant. Then my personal favourite, shun the haters, positive thinking will make their business successful!

From your perspective, you want to be avoiding the ones who are underfunded, because they will not be able to pay you.

I think the main problem is capital, if your capital is not limited you will not have problems with the business

R0NNI said:

I think the main problem is capital, if your capital is not limited you will not have problems with the business

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I guess you have never ran a business or ever hired people then?

You might want to see the damage covid has done to businesses who arent online so that might give you a bit of a hint of what to do next

GringoMonkey said:

@pj777777 gave you a decent starting point for your market research.

But, in my experience the biggest problem people who start their first business have is they dont actually know how to setup and run a business properly. However, try telling them that!

For example people who open a restaurant typically think all they need to be/hire is a good cook. People who download wordpress and a few themes now think they can run a web design agency. Or they read a few blog posts and now think they can set up as a business consultant. Then my personal favourite, shun the haters, positive thinking will make their business successful!

From your perspective, you want to be avoiding the ones who are underfunded, because they will not be able to pay you.

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This. OP, this has 90% of what you need.

In my own experience:
1. not getting into mastermind groups early enough - - having peers who are also running businesses cuts your learning curve a lot. People who avoid joining groups, forums etc always have a tougher time.
2. being attached to existing processes - - once a business owner finds a process that works, there's a lot of inertia when it comes to further expanding, improving or discarding those processes for more efficient ones.
3. thinking that only skills = clients - - skillsets matter, but most businesses cannot communicate the value of their skillsets to clients well enough
4. thinking that only marketing = clients - - the opposite of point (3) - some business owners, particularly the "fake it till you make it variety", will tend to overpromise and underdeliver. They get many clients onboard but retention is extremely poor.
5. not thinking atleast 3-5 years ahead in the future, not paying attention to changing technologies and trends, resting on ones laurels, not doing enough research - - all variations of intellectual laziness.
6. working "in the business" instead of "on the business".

R0NNI said:

I think the main problem is capital, if your capital is not limited you will not have problems with the business

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Capital is not the main problem ime.

R0NNI said:

I think the main problem is capital, if your capital is not limited you will not have problems with the business

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TBH having a lot of capital can hurt you because you're more likely to develop processes that burn more money than they bring in. Not having much capital forces you to build lean. I've known guys who started local SEO businesses and were burning half their income on recurring payments on SEO tools, and got wiped out when the pandemic hit and many of their clients stopped paying them.

Just reach out and talk to people.

Don't start your day saying "I will reach out to as many people as I can."

Instead, start your day with specific goals that you set from the day before: "Tomorrow I will identify 50 companies that I would be interested in serving, will reach out to all of them, and schedule calls with every single one that responds"

Many will say NO, don't be discouraged by that, keep going, all you need are the ones that say YES.

Depending on how many responds you get, increase/decrease your daily goal, and repeat the process.

In no time you will know a ton about that area, maybe even more than some of the businessowners that you talk to because you will be hearing several different perspectives whereas many owners will only have their own perspective because they prefer to keep it to themselves.

There are different problems faced by different types of businesses. What type of business are you referring to ?

noellarkin said:

TBH having a lot of capital can hurt you because you're more likely to develop processes that burn more money than they bring in. Not having much capital forces you to build lean. I've known guys who started local SEO businesses and were burning half their income on recurring payments on SEO tools, and got wiped out when the pandemic hit and many of their clients stopped paying them.

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I partly agree,but my point is that if you are not limited in the finances (which is very rare) can not be afraid of anything)