What are good product ideas?

What Are Good Sources of New Product Ideas?

• Answer:

  When it comes to generating business ideas, little is more terrifying than staring at a blank page. Ingenious products can make the companies that manufacture them huge profits, so there is often a lot of pressure to come up with an idea that is useful to the public. Luckily, sources for new product ideas can be found all around you. Learning how find and draw from these idea sources can be a profitable endeavor for creative and dedicated entrepreneurs. Examine Existing Markets and Products Looking at gaps in existing markets can lead to innovative product ideas. An entrepreneur can generate good product ideas by thinking of products that will solve a problem existing in a specific market today. These can be completely new product ideas that revolutionize a market, or simply clever improvements that provide more useful features to existing products. Take a look at some of the products in a niche you wish to sell to. Examine whether or not these products serve every need in that niche; if they don't, ask yourself how you can improve or replace that product with something either more comprehensive or easier to use. Socialize With People in Your Niche Sometimes it helps to step outside the vacuum of product analysis. Socializing both digitally and in person will give you access to a variety of people who likely share common problems and needs. If you bring up your initial ideas at a cocktail party in the industry you're hoping to serve, you may find that several of your acquaintances are happy to share their experiences and problems as fuel for future ideas. Social networking sites, blogs, and online forums are also excellent sources of ideas because they give you a potentially global audience to be inspired by. Paying attention to trends being talked about in your social circle will also give you an idea of whether your product would sell or not. Use Ideas to Get Ideas Instead of waiting to find the perfect product idea, try testing the waters of a few basic ideas with your potential customer base. This can be done through formal focus groups or an informal case-by-case testing by potential customers. Their feedback and application of your initial product idea will show gaps and flaws in your initial idea. You can then generate ideas regarding how to address those gaps, leading to product improvement or new product ideas altogether. Examine Your Own Wants and Needs When all else fails, sometimes the best ideas come from your own problems and frustrations. Highly targeted project ideas can be generated to solve problems you've encountered in your hobbies or daily chores. Your creative interests, such as music or art, can also indirectly generate product ideas by giving you inspiration for design and brand image. Even the simple task of examining your own flaws and failures can give you ideas for products that will fix them.