Page 85 - 100 Great Business Ideas: From Leading Companies Around the World (100 Great Ideas)

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SUMMARY OF STEPS

I. State your problem.

2. Identify the various product, price, promotion, distribution, and
target market issues related to solving that problem in terms of
how the customer would be affected.

3. From these, develop possible solutions.

33/7. BACKTOTHE SUN

All physical things can be reduced to their energy equiva-
lents. By tracing their history back to the natural resources
from which they were developed, and ultimately to the sun

as the source of all energy, we can better ap-
preciate how the elements of a problem
are related." This better understanding
may suggest solutions.

Suppose, for example, that we are try-
ing to develop a shoe using different
materials than those commonly used,
or a different way of using existing
materials in making shoes. When you
look at a shoe you see leather, rubber,
strings, nails, polish, thread, and so on. For
each of these elements you can trace a pro-
cess back to natural resources and ultimately to the sun.

RUBBER: stamps, mold, heel factories, shipping, raw la-
tex process, rubber plant, rubber tree.

STRINGS: plastic tips, woven fabric, coloring, fiber, woven
fiber, spun fiber, drawn fiber, plastic, petroleum,
chemicals, fossil deposits.

LEATHER: texturing, coloring, hole punching, cutting out,
tannery, slaughterhouse, trucking, ranch, feed.

POLISH: application, coloring, container, mixing, truck-
ing, petroleum, chemicals, fossil deposits.

NAILS: hammer, forge, wire, spools, steel, Pittsburgh
shipping, Minnesota iron, ore deposits.

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