Practical guidance to help you turn your ideas into income.
I Want to Start a Business, But I'm Not Sure What
Want to start a business but not sure what? Work out where you're starting from, what you already have and the right next step for finding your business idea.
9/13/20268 min read
Whether you want extra income, something of your own, or a way out of your 9–5, your first step is working out where you're starting from..
Maybe you just want a bit of extra income,
something on the side that doesn't take over your life.
Maybe it’s something that's genuinely yours, a project, a name, a thing you built,
separate from wherever you currently work.
Maybe you're quietly wondering whether it could eventually become more than that,
enough to replace your 9:00 - 5:00 job.
Or maybe you already know: you want out of your 9:00 - 5:00 grind
and starting a business feels like the only real way there.
Whatever brought you to this point,
there's a good chance you're feeling the same thing underneath it:
you want to start something, but you don't actually know what.
That's completely normal, and it's exactly where this series begins.
Before you can move forward, it helps to get honest about a few things.
What is the reason for wanting to start a business?
Where are you actually starting from?
What's actually holding you back beyond the idea itself?
What Does Success Look Like to You?
What Do You Already Have To Work With?
1. What’s Your Why?
Two people can both say: “I want to start a business.”
and mean completely different things.
One might mean: “I'd like to make an extra £500 a month.”
Another might mean: “I want to leave my job eventually and replace my salary.”
Someone else might want a business they can run around their family.
Another person may want to build something they could eventually sell.
And someone else may simply want to prove to themselves that
they can create something of their own.
None of these reasons are more legitimate than another.
But they can lead you towards very different businesses.
A business that works brilliantly as a weekend side income
may not have the potential to replace a £60,000 salary.
A business capable of becoming a large company may require more time,
money and responsibility than somebody actually wants.
A business that looks highly scalable on paper may not suit someone
who genuinely loves working directly with customers.
So before asking what business you should start, ask:
What do I actually want this business to do for me?
That's your first clue.
2. Where Are You Actually Starting From?
Not everyone reading this is in the same position,
even though "I want to start a business" sounds like one single problem.
In reality, it's usually one of four quite different starting points,
and each one needs a different next step.
I don't have a business idea yet.
I know what I'm good at, but I don't know what business I could create from it.
I have several business ideas, but I don't know which one to choose.
I already have one business idea that I want to start with.
Wherever you're starting from, you're not behind
It's worth saying plainly:
None of these four starting points is better or worse than the others.
Having one idea doesn't make you further ahead than someone with none,
it just means you're facing a different question.
Over the next few weeks,
we'll take each of these starting points in turn, and by the end,
the goal is the same for everyone, whichever door you walk in through:
You will come out with one idea,
grounded enough in reality that you're ready to actually test it.
3. Explain Your Offer Clearly
For nearly everyone, there's a quieter question sitting underneath the practical one,
Someone may say “I don't know what business to start.”
But underneath that could be:
What if I choose the wrong thing?
What if I waste money?
What if I'm not actually capable of doing this?
What if I start and nobody buys?
What if I leave something secure for something that fails?
What if people think this is ridiculous?
We don't need to solve those fears here.
But acknowledging them matters because otherwise
somebody can spend six months “looking for the right idea”
when the actual thing stopping them is fear of committing to any idea.
4. What Does Success Look Like to You?
This is one of those questions that sounds enormous until you make it practical.
You don't need a five-year vision.
You don't need to know what your future company will look like.
Just think about what would make you look back in a few years and say:
“I'm glad I started this.”
Would success mean:
earning an additional £500 or £1,000 a month?
eventually replacing your salary?
having more control over your working hours?
working from anywhere?
building something that isn't completely dependent on your time?
creating a small business that you enjoy running?
employing other people eventually?
building something you could one day sell?
Your answer doesn't lock you into anything.
It simply gives you something to measure potential ideas against.
Because an idea isn't good simply because someone else is making money from it.
It needs to make sense for what you're trying to create.
5. What Am I Starting With?
When people think about starting a business,
they often assume they need to discover some brilliant new idea.
You probably don't.
I. Start With What You Already Have
Sometimes the beginnings of a business are already
sitting somewhere in your existing life.
That doesn't mean the answer will be obvious.
It just means you don't necessarily have to start from zero.
Think about:
What do you know how to do?
What have you learned through work or life?
What do people already ask you for help with?
What problems have you solved for yourself?
What industries or communities do you understand?
What could you talk about or work on without having
to become an expert from scratch?
That doesn't mean you have to turn your current job into a business.
But your experience is still part of what you have to work with.
Skills transfer.
Knowledge transfers.
Relationships transfer.
Understanding how people or industries work transfers.
And sometimes something that feels completely ordinary to you
is useful precisely because you've been doing it for years.
II. Don't Only Ask What You're Good At
There's another side to this.
Being capable of doing something doesn't automatically mean
you want to build a business around it.
You might be very good at something you've had quite enough of.
So ask yourself: What am I interested enough in to keep learning about?
Not: “What is my one true passion?”
That's a lot of pressure to put on a business idea.
You don't have to wake up every morning overwhelmed with passion for
But you probably need enough interest in the problem,
customer or work to keep going when the novelty of “starting a business” disappears.
There's a useful difference between being good at something
and wanting to build a business around it.
Your strongest ideas may sit somewhere between the two.
III. Don't Forget Your Constraints
This is one of the less exciting parts of choosing a business idea.
But it's also one of the most useful.
What do you realistically have available right now?
Think about:
Time: What time do I actually have?
Money: What can I comfortably afford?
Learning: What would I need to learn?
Energy: What kind of work suits me?
Responsibilities: What does the business need to fit around?
Risk: How much uncertainty am I comfortable with?
These aren't reasons not to start.
They're the boundaries you're designing within.
And knowing your constraints can actually make choosing easier.
If you have £500 and ten hours a week,
That doesn't mean you can't build a business.
It means a business requiring £30,000 of stock,
premises and your full-time presence
probably isn't the most sensible place to begin.
Look for Problems, Not Just Products
Another way to find business ideas is to stop asking: “What could I sell?”
and start noticing: “What are people struggling with?”
Businesses exist because somebody wants something to be
easier,
faster,
cheaper,
clearer,
safer,
possible,
more enjoyable or
simply convenience.
Listen to what people complain about.
Notice questions that keep being asked.
Look at what people are already paying for but don't particularly like.
Notice workarounds.
Pay attention when someone says:
“I wish there was…”
“Why is this so difficult?”
“I can't find…”
“I've tried everything…”
“Does anyone know how to…?”
You don't have to invent a problem.
In fact, that's precisely what you don't want to do.
You want to notice problems, needs and desires that already exist.
And you don't need to solve them yet.
At this stage, you're collecting possibilities.
You Don't Have to Choose the Business Model Yet
Choosing an idea doesn't mean you need to know exactly
what the business will look like yet.
You might know what area you want to work in
without knowing what the actual business should look like.
Suppose you know you want to build something around nutrition.
That could eventually become:
one-to-one consulting,
a course,
digital products,
a membership or
even a physical product.
That's because your business idea and your business model aren't quite the same thing.
You don't need to solve that part yet.
For now, your job is to identify the ideas worth exploring.
We'll look at how those ideas could actually make money later in Discovery.
You Are Allowed to Start Without Having Everything Figured Out
When I started building my own businesses,
understanding this would have saved me a lot of time.
I thought I needed to have far more figured out before I could move forward.
There comes a point where thinking becomes another way of avoiding doing.
You won't know everything before you start.
You won't understand your customer perfectly.
You won't know exactly what they'll buy.
You may change your pricing.
Your first offer may change.
Your website will change.
You might even discover that the original business idea isn't the right one.
Or has evolved beyond where it started from.
That's not necessarily evidence that you made a mistake.
It's often how businesses develop.
Some of the clarity you're waiting for only becomes available
after you start doing something.
So the goal of Discovery isn't certainty.
It's to reduce enough uncertainty that you can take a sensible next step.
Your Next Move
Don't try to choose your business today.
Instead, give yourself a starting list.
Write down three to five possibilities.
They can come from:
something you already know how to do
a problem you've experienced yourself
something people regularly ask you for help with
a group of people you understand well
an opportunity you've noticed
something you're interested in exploring
a product or service you think could be done differently
Don't judge them too quickly.
Don't build them.
Don't buy domains for all five. 😂
Just write them down.
Then beside each one, answer three questions:
1. Why does this idea interest me?
2. Who might find this useful?
3. What would I need to find out before I knew whether it was worth pursuing?
That's enough for now.
Something to Sit With
If all of your possible business ideas made exactly the same amount of money:
Which one would you most want to explore?
Now turn the question around.
If the idea you love most turned out to have very little evidence of demand:
Would you still want to build it?
There's no correct answer.
But the tension between those two questions tells you something useful.
A business has to work for you.
Eventually, it also has to work for someone else.
Discovery is where we begin bringing those two things together.
What Comes Next?
Once you have a few possible ideas, the next job isn't to build all of them.
It's to start narrowing them down.
You'll want to look at:
what each idea would require
who it might serve
how it could potentially make money
what evidence you already have
and, most importantly, what you still don't know
Because choosing an idea isn't the same as proving that it will work.
It's simply choosing which direction deserves a closer look.
Keep Reading
5 Signs Your First Product Idea Has Real Potential
Practical Tools for Your Next Step
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