How Bad Business Ideas Become Hits
How Bad Business Ideas Become Hits
Apply this to any outrageous, bland, or strange product idea to make it sellable.
I hear a lot of outrageous business ideas — some of them don’t go anywhere, and some of them to my surprise, end up becoming booming businesses.
The more I’ve been exposed to sleeper hits and unexpected successes, I’m reminded time and time again the power of appealing to GAPS:
Gap, Aspiration, Potent Pain, & Story
Your business idea can be a generous heaping pile of garbage, but if you’ve brilliantly wrapped it in an emotionally moving variation of GAPS, you can sell anything to pretty much anyone.
Here’s what GAPS is all about when you apply it to your business idea:
Gap
Appeal to an overlooked gap, price the product affordably, and launch marketing in a blitz to convert customers through repetitive advertising.
A good example of this are those tinted night glasses that allow people who have trouble driving in the dark to see more clearly. Most “As Seen On TV” products represent this style of product.
Aspiration
Design your business idea around the person that your customer aspires to be, but can’t attain on their own.
Do they desire to live a certain lifestyle, look a certain way (or like a certain person), attain a specific goal, or become a type of person? Help your audience reach this aspiration quickly and you won’t have too much friction selling your solution.
Potent Pain
Find a pain point that prevents your customer from making more money, looking and feeling good, living the life they want, or reaching their aspirations.
This pain point should be at the forefront of your customers’ minds and at the top of their daily to-do list to resolve. This pain should be potent enough that they’re willing to invest both time and money to fix it.
Story
This is where business ideas can get a little wild.
If a business idea is capable of instigating or being at the center of a good story and sparking joy in one’s life, it can do well even if the product itself is a tad ridiculous.
Great examples: dog goggles, pet rocks, and escape room experiences — all ideas that spark joy and stories, but aren’t humanity-shifting ideas.
This breakdown offers a couple of takeaways that I want you to remember if you’re in a fog of imposter syndrome, an ideation rut, or stuck while starting up:
1) loosen up your attachment to your idea — the idea by itself is not as important as how your customer relates to your idea.
2) all of your customer’s buying motivations come down to one simple need: resolve their pain, help them find their joy.
3) whenever you feel like you’re not enough and that you’re an imposter for wanting to go big with your business, remind yourself that someone had the gumption to go big with selling “pet” rocks and ended up becoming a millionaire from it.
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