How to Figure Out What Kind of Business to Start

You know you want something of your own. Maybe you’ve been thinking about starting a business for months, or maybe it’s been sitting in the back of your mind for years.

You like the idea of working for yourself, making your own money and building something that belongs to you. There’s just one problem: you have no idea what the business should actually be.

So you start searching for business ideas for women, businesses you can start from home, online business ideas, side hustles, things you can sell and things you can make. Suddenly you have 147 possible business ideas and somehow feel less sure than when you started.

I don’t think you need another giant list of ideas. I think there’s a good chance your business is already hiding somewhere in what you know, what you’ve done and what you’re naturally good at.

You just need to learn how to spot it.

Stop Looking for the Perfect Business Idea

One of the easiest ways to never start a business is to convince yourself you need to find the idea first. The brilliant one, the completely original one, the one you’re absolutely certain will work.

But your first business idea doesn’t have to be revolutionary. It doesn’t even have to be the business you’re running ten years from now. It just needs to be good enough to try.

You can change the offer, your audience, your prices or even your entire direction later. I’ve done all of those things, and I’ve learned far more from actually starting than I ever could have learned from sitting around thinking about starting.

Start With What You Already Know

Before looking outside yourself for business ideas, take inventory of what you already have. And don’t immediately dismiss something because it feels too ordinary.

The things that are easy for you may not be easy for someone else.

Ask yourself:

• What am I already good at?
• What do people ask me for help with?
• What have I spent years learning?
• What have I figured out through my own experience?
• What could I teach someone else?
• What can I make, organize or simplify?
• What problems have I solved for myself?
• What could I talk about for an hour without preparing?

Your answers don’t have to sound impressive. Maybe you’re incredibly organized, make beautiful cakes, know everything about planning Disney vacations or have spent ten years doing bookkeeping.

Maybe you’re the person everyone asks to help decorate a room, fix their resume, take family photos, organize their pantry or figure out what to make for dinner. There are businesses hiding inside ordinary skills all the time.

Look for a Problem You Know How to Solve

Instead of asking “What should I sell?”, try asking “What can I help someone do?” That’s a much more useful question.

A photographer helps a family capture memories. A meal-planning business helps a busy mom figure out what to make for dinner. A bookkeeper helps a business owner make sense of their finances.

A printable chore chart helps a parent organize the chaos at home. A pottery teacher helps someone learn how to throw their first bowl. A Pinterest consultant helps a business get more people to its website.

The product isn’t necessarily the starting point. The problem is.

Once you understand the problem you can help solve, it becomes much easier to figure out what you could sell to solve it.

Decide How You Want to Make Money

The same knowledge can often become several completely different businesses. Let’s say you’re really good at gardening.

You could offer garden-design services, grow and sell seedlings, create printable garden planners or teach beginner gardening workshops. You could also build a gardening website and earn money through advertising and affiliate links, create an online course or write a paid gardening newsletter.

Same person. Same knowledge. Completely different businesses.

That’s why I wouldn’t only ask yourself, “What am I good at?” I’d also ask, “How do I actually want to spend my days?”

Build a Business That Fits Your Life

This part gets skipped surprisingly often. A business can be a fantastic idea and still be a terrible business for you.

Think about what you actually want your work to look like. Do you want to work from home or have a studio or shop? Do you want to work directly with people, or would you rather work quietly on your own?

Think about whether you want to make physical things with your hands, spend your days on a computer, work with clients, manage employees someday or build something that can eventually earn money without requiring every hour of your time.

There’s no correct answer, but the answers matter. If your dream is having complete flexibility over your schedule, for example, building a business that requires you to be available for clients eight hours a day might not get you where you want to go.

You’re not just choosing a business. You’re choosing what running that business will ask you to do every day.

Look at What People Already Spend Money On

You don’t need to invent a brand-new market. In fact, seeing other people successfully selling something similar to your idea can be a very good sign.

People already spend money to learn things, save time, solve problems, feel better, make their homes nicer, entertain themselves, care for their families, grow their businesses, develop hobbies, get organized and make life easier.

Look at what’s already happening around your idea. What are people buying? What questions are they asking? What are they frustrated by? What do the existing options do well, and where might there be room to do something differently?

You’re not looking for something nobody has ever thought of before. You’re looking for a place where your skills, experience and perspective can be useful.

Choose Something You Can Test

This is where I’d resist the urge to disappear for six months and build an entire business. You don’t need twelve products, a giant website, 50,000 followers or the perfect logo before you can find out whether an idea has potential.

You need a version one.

If you want to offer a service, could you find your first three clients? If you want to sell something handmade, could you make ten and see what happens? If you want to teach, could you run one small workshop?

If you want to create a digital product, could you make one useful product and try to sell it? If you want to build a content business, could you publish your first ten really good articles and start learning what people respond to?

Make the smallest useful version of the idea and put it in front of real people. Once people actually interact with your idea, you’ll learn things you could never have figured out sitting at your kitchen table planning it.

You Don’t Have to Know Where This Ends

My own path certainly wasn’t a straight one. I went to art school, sold handmade products, built websites, created digital products and spent years running different kinds of businesses.

Then in 2020, I started a food blog. I didn’t know exactly what that little website would become when I started it, so I kept publishing, experimenting, learning and figuring out what worked.

Eventually, AndiAnne grew into a business reaching hundreds of thousands of people every month. And now I’m building something new again.

None of those things required me to know what the next twenty years were going to look like. I just needed to know what I was going to build next.

That’s something I wish more women knew when they’re sitting there thinking, I want something of my own. I just don’t know what it is yet.

You don’t need to figure out your forever business. You need to find an idea that’s worth exploring.

Your Business Doesn’t Have to Start Big. It Just Has to Start.

Look at what you know, what you’re good at and the problems you understand. Then think about the kind of life you want your business to fit into.

Choose something worth testing and build version one. Put it into the world, pay attention to what happens and keep going.

You can figure out the next part when you get there.

Not Sure What Comes Next?

Download The Brand → Build → Launch Roadmap, my free step-by-step guide to help you figure out what comes first, what can wait and how to move from “I want to start a business” to actually building one.

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