DELIVERING IDEAS TO EMPOWER TODAY’S BUSINESS OWNER

This is Kevin O’Leary, chairman of O-Shares, CNBC contributor and small business investor. I’m here to share some useful tips and advice to empower the Spectrum Business community.
 

SOLVE A PROBLEM – START A BUSINESS

People ask me all the time, how do I start a new business? How can I be successful? It’s very, very simple. Solve a problem. Solve a problem! Businesses solve problems. People pay to solve problems. You have to find a problem everybody has, so you can sell a lot of it to a lot of people.

 

The best ideas are really simple. It’s amazing. You solve a problem and you grow a business. You keep solving the problem, you get better and better at it, your business gets bigger and bigger. Any business you know that’s been successful solves problems. So, if you’re sitting in the basement and you’re looking out the window, and you want to be an entrepreneur, you have to solve a problem. And sometimes that problem can be something you’ve never thought of before. Somebody walks into your life and says something to you about an issue they’re dealing with – BINGO! You have a great idea. You have to keep your mind open to all new ideas.

 

Now, not everything works. Not every business is successful. But if you’re an entrepreneur, you know, I like to invest in entrepreneurs that have failed a couple of times. They’ve felt the sting of failure. Very motivational. The third time around can sometimes be magic. And remember this, you only need one hit to set yourself free. The whole idea of entrepreneurship is to work like hell now so you’re free later in life. It’s not about the greed of money, it’s the pursuit of personal freedom. That’s why people do it.

 

Such simple ideas can become such huge businesses. Let me give you an example. You know people now don’t want to carry plastic around anymore. They don’t want to throw plastic out. There’s a whole new generation of consumers that are sick of throwing out plastics into the ocean. What’s the biggest use of plastics? Detergents. Liquids you take from grocery stores to wash your clothes. It’s basically water. But it’s in a big plastic jug. Where does that end up in? Very often the ocean. Now people are getting hip to that, they don’t want to do that anymore. So along comes a fantastic idea. Why not crystallize the detergent into a pill you can drop into water at home in a reusable bottle? Talk about a fantastic idea. Well, it’s called Blueland. It’s an example of a business that was formed out of an idea – like, BING! That’s a great idea. That’s going to be a big business. Now am I an investor in that? Yes! I love to invest in great ideas. But my point is, it solves a problem. It solves a big problem.  And when you solve a big problem, you create a big business.

 

Thanks for watching. For more of my small business tips and advice go to SpectrumBusinessInsights.com.

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