Page 57 - The Business Idea Factory: A World-Class System for Creating Successful Business Ideas

Combine ideas

Make connections

When I studied at the University of Michigan, one day I asked my friend Martin, “Hey, Martin, how
was your summer internship?” He said, “Andrii, I worked in a supply chain department of a large
medical equipment producer. I have developed a new ordering strategy which saves the company over
$10M per year. The co mpany issued me a jo b o ffer and as a to ken o f appr eciatio n will pay fo r my
education.”

I asked, “Martin, how did you manage to get this idea?”

“Well, Andrii, actually I just brought directors of all the company divisions to the same room and
asked how they place their orders now. We have taken the best ideas from all existing strategies and
based on them, created a strategy that is a company-wide standard today.”

Creativity researchers have discovered that all great ideas are combinations or modifications of the
existing ones. Geniuses create their breakthrough inventions by making connections between existing
ideas, just like Martin during his summer internship. Henry Ford once said, “The simple secret of my
genius is that I created something new out of the ideas and inventions of others.” Steve Jobs said,
“When yo u ask cr eative peo ple ho w they did so mething , they feel a little g uilty because they didn’t
really do it; they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That’s because they
were able to connect experiences they’ve had and synthesize new things.” American advertising
executive Jerry Della Femina said: “Creativity is about making a lot of quick connections — about the
things you know, the things you’ve seen. The more you’ve done, the easier it is to make that jump.”

Professor Dean Keith, in his research, found that creative geniuses generate more breakthrough
ideas than other people. What he also found is that they generate many more useless and unsuccessful
ideas. The creation of a breakthrough business idea depends on chance and geniuses increase its
probability by making a lot of connections between random thoughts, experiences and ideas.

If you want to dramatically increase your effectiveness in producing great business ideas, make this
your invocation: “All ideas are a combination or modification of existing ideas. To increase the
probability of creating a successful business idea, I will make more random combinations between
thoughts, experiences and ideas every day.”

Just focus your attention and think

When I studied at elementar y scho o l, o ur teacher o nce said, “Do n’t think abo ut a yello w mo nkey.”
The entire class laughed because we all thought about the yellow monkey. In my imagination the
monkey was sitting on a bench, then dancing and eventually sitting at the desk.

When you concentrate your attention on a particular object or a problem, after some time your brain
will get bored and begin thinking about how to perceive it differently, decompose it into parts or
connect with other thoughts, experiences or ideas. I am often asked, “Andrii, how should I be
thinking?” and I answer, “Simply focus your attention on the problem and your creative mind will do
the rest.”