How to get inspiration to start something

I often get asked the question “How did you get the idea to start your business?”. I think that’s an interesting question because every entrepreneur gets inspired to start their businesses in their own way. That’s something I also happen to often ask entrepreneurs whenever I see them. How did you end up starting this?

Here are the common answers I got:

1) I first invested in this business, but it wasn’t doing too well so I took it over in the end and turned it around.

A well known example of this is Tony Hsieh. He was first an investor in Zappos and was investing in a number of other ventures. Zappos was a promising startup but they had their fair share of issues and they needed capital.

One day Tony Hsieh saw an opportunity to acquire enough of the company and appointed himself CEO, moving from an investor to CEO. Zappos eventually got acquired by Amazon for over $800 mil.

I know of a well-known film company here in Malaysia that has a similar story. The owner was first an investor but it wasn’t doing so well so he eventually bought it over and turned the business around.

2) I was working for somebody when…

Sometimes sitting under a tree no matter how inspirational it looks doesn’t necessarily give you the best business ideas. You need to go out there and explore the world.

Working for another company sometimes gives you that opportunity because you get to see the inside of whatever industry you’re in. From there you can see problems or inefficiencies and with any problem lies a solution and hence an opportunity.

One of my Dad’s friend started out just like that. He was an engineer and he was out in the field one day when somebody he met told him about a problem that needed to be solved. Oil tankers all over the world were transporting oil but the problem is theft. Somewhere midway in the ocean someone in the crew could very well syphon out some of the oil and you’ll never really be able to know for sure because the tanker is so large. This was costing companies millions  every year.

He came out with the idea to do a tamper proof seal on the oil tanker. So if somebody ever opened it before it reached its destination, the people on the other side will know for sure. The company did really well and listed on the Malaysian stock exchange.

3) I heard about this company from overseas that does the same thing I do…

Many entrepreneurs I know don’t bother reinventing the wheel. They just look at business models that work elsewhere overseas and bring it back to Malaysia. The benefit of that is that someone else has already done it somewhere else so you can learn from their mistakes and figure out how to improve from there.