Page 32 - The Business Idea Factory: A World-Class System for Creating Successful Business Ideas

“Each of these problems I split into several even smaller problems. ‘How can I produce tasty
chocolates?’ may be split into: ‘How do I get a recipe for tasty chocolate?’ and ‘How do I outsource
pr o ductio n o f my cho co late?’ The task, ‘Ho w can I sell many cho co lates?’ may be split into : ‘Ho w
can I sell chocolates through supermarkets?’ and ‘How can I promote chocolates through media?’

“All tasks get split into smaller tasks until they get so small that by thinking about them, I can come to
specific actions that need to be taken.

“I use this strategy every day for solving complex business tasks. Andrii, if you want to solve a
complex problem, just build a pyramid from smaller problems and you will be able to solve tasks that
seem unsolvable from the first glance.”

Once you create an idea of what business you want to be in, the process of generating business ideas
only begins. You will need to create thousands of smaller ideas that will answer questions about how
to implement each element of the business such as: promotion, hiring talent, outsourcing product
develo pment, mar keting o r sales. Pr actice chang ing the abstr actio n level o f yo ur questio ns and yo u
will be easily able to switch between strategic tasks and everyday implementation tasks. Practice
splitting big tasks into smaller ones and there will be no problem for which you can’t create a
brilliant solution. Remember that businesses become great one idea at a time.

Imagine that you work for minimum wage and you have a childhood dream to travel around the
world for 6 months on a luxurious yacht. You ask yourself, “How can I earn $200,000 to buy a
luxurious yacht for my trip?” After brainstorming for a week, you come to a conclusion, “With my
current salary there is no way I can make my childhood dream a reality.” Let’s see how applying
techniques from this section can make a trip possible within a very short period of time.

Fir stly, let’s r ewo r d this questio n to : “Ho w can I spend 6 mo nths o n a luxur io us yacht?” and “Ho w
can I travel on a luxurious yacht for cheap?” The answer to these questions can be, “I can rent a yacht
for 6 months. It will cost only $20,000” and “I can share the expenses with 9 people who also want to
travel the world on the luxurious yacht.”

Secondly, let’s break the task into 2 smaller pieces: “Where can I find 9 people who want to travel on
a luxurious yacht?” and “How can I save $2,000 for the trip?” Both of these tasks are much more
feasible than earning $200,000 but lead you to fulfillment of the same dream.

Albert Einstein said, “The formulation of a problem is often more essential than its solution, which
may be mer ely a matter o f mathematical o r exper imental skills. To r aise new questio ns … r equir es
creative imagination and makes real advances.”

If you can’t find a solution for a business task, it’s very likely that you are simply asking the wrong
question. Change the questions you are thinking about, change the abstraction level and break big
problems into pieces. If you apply these techniques regularly, you will soon realize that you can solve
problems of any difficulty.