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30 Business Brainstorming Ideas - Part 1

Sometimes you just get stuck for ideas. Your mind is a blank. It makes it even harder to come up with the goods if your present or future business rests on your ideas. A little help and inspiration for a new article, a new product, or a completely new business wouldn't go amiss in these circumstances.

The purpose of the ideas in this article is to get your brain thinking. The ideas may seem a bit crazy and unrealistic - almost too simple. But.... the intention is for these ideas to act as a trigger, making you say something like: "That idea's ridiculous, but if I change it around a bit I could..." So, use one or more of these ideas as your starting point and brainstorm your way to a new opportunity.

1. Produce Christmas cards which are printed on the front with, for example, "Happy Christmas from the Smith Family". Or, instead of the name "Smith", pick one of the dozens of other popular surnames. Sell packs of these cards by direct mail to people listed in telephone directories.

2. Make money from renting out expensive children's toys. The toys you rent out will include remote control models and computerised games. Use a little van to deliver the toys to customers. The van should have a toy town colour scheme, sirens and flashing lights. Call the van a toy-mobile.

3. Introduce to your region a service which mounts maps for businesses. Keep a stock of local, national and international maps. Mount these maps in a professional manner to suit the wall space available at offices. Send out leaflets about your service to office managers.

4. Bring out a regular publication for ambitious, amateur musicians. This publication might include ads from: i) employers seeking musicians; ii) retailers selling equipment, accessories and supplies; (iii) people selling used equipment. Also print interesting editorial.

5. Design and manufacture kits for making models with cocktail sticks. For example, model churches, castles, windmills, houses, etc. Buy the cocktail sticks in unpacked form in bulk from a manufacturer. Sell your kits by mail order from ads in craft magazines or distribute to model shops.

6. Produce a directory of products no longer made. This directory might include sections on toys, novelties and household goods. Design the directory for business people and inventors who want to know both what has been made before and what ideas might be revived or modified.

7. Make cotton gloves specially designed for coin collectors. The gloves prevent the acidic grease and moisture on fingers from getting on to coins. Package the gloves and sell from ads in coin collecting magazines or distribute to shops which sell collectible coins.

8. Bring out a correspondence course about how to write cookery books. The course might include information about: how to devise recipes; how to present them in written form and what makes a successful cookery book. Produce a prospectus and advertise in women's magazine.

9. Begin a business which rents out large and expensive astronomical telescopes to householders who want to develop their interest in astronomy. Publicise your service at the local astronomy society and use local advertising to attract clients. Link up with a telescope supplier and get a 10% finder's fee for those people who go on to buy their own telescope.

10. Set up a company which produces a compendium of strip games, for example: strip poker, strip snakes and ladders, strip lotto, strip snap and strip ludo. Sell the compendiums of games by mail order from ads in x-rated magazines.

11. Paint attractive art on rocks to make souvenir paperweights and doorstops. The art might take the form of abstract patterns, traditional pictures or tourist scenery. Call your rocks 'designer rocks'. Add a rubber base to paperweights and a rubber edge to doorstops.

12. Create a mail order business which specialises in selling products which help people sleep. The products you sell might include: sleep inducing cassettes, special bedtime clothing, herbal pillows and how to sleep well booklets. Company names might be something like 'Sleepwell', 'Sleeptight' etc.

13. Paint on wood, stylish house numbers and names. These painted numbers and names will be an attractive alternative to the traditional names burned into sliced logs. Get your work stocked at shops which sell garden products or household goods.

14. Start a venture which promotes the art and hobby of window painting. On coloured acetate paper have outlines printed for painting pictures by numbers. These acetate sheets are stuck to one side of a window and anyone can paint a picture on the other side of the window.

15. Select one seashell which would be suitable for use as an ashtray, another for a pip tray and a third for a paper clip tray. Put these shells into a single packet and sell as a set of useful household seashell trays. Find shops to stock your packets of seashell trays.

16. Devise and produce a board game which simulates the experience of starting a mail order business. The usual problem of bringing out a board game is the difficulty of getting it stocked at shops. However, a game about mail order can be sold by mail order to business opportunity seekers.

17. Make an income from selling lucky charms door-to-door. Sell, for example: rabbits' feet, horseshoes and four-leaf clovers. Start this enterprise by tracking down trade sources of these lucky charms.

18. Begin a business which buys and sells oil paintings. Buy new paintings from artists and old paintings from collectors and householders. Sell the paintings from: home, a roadside site, a stall at craft fairs, or hire halls for exhibiting all the paintings you have for sale.

19. Start a manufacturing business which is devoted to making doorstops. The doorstops you make might range from humble wooden wedges to the exotic and unusual. Package the doorstops in polythene bags, staple on a printed card and get them stocked at hardware or gift shops.

20. Decorate everyday objects with pressed flowers. Add an inlaid design of pressed flowers to trays, coasters, jewellery boxes, paperweights, picture frames, wall hangings, desk sets and table tops.

21. Set up a home improvement business which modifies the exterior of houses to give them a Tudor appearance. Your service will include: fitting ornamental oak beams, giving exterior walls a white covering and adding a metal grid to windows.

22. Make wooden 'strip noughts and crosses' games (an item of clothing is taken off by the loser of a game). Drill 9 holes into a small square block and paint on a grid. Next, make 10 pegs and paint on each peg an '0' or 'X'. Put the grid and pegs into a clear bag and staple on a product name card. Sell to sex shops and mail order.

23. Bring together a range of brass ware ornaments so you can have a stall at craft fairs, antique markets and Sunday markets.

24. Publish a newsletter which has a title like 'Ambitious Person's Way to Wealth' or 'Clever People Don't Work Hard'. The contents of your newsletter might be in a vein similar to Joe Karbo's 'The Lazy Man's Way to Riches'.

25. Set up and run a school of window dressing. Organise one-day or two-day courses or seminars for established shopkeepers who want to learn more about this aspect of their business. Also provide courses for those who would like to take up a career as a window dresser. (Tip: You can run a profitable seminar on anything without knowing the first thing about the subject yourself. You merely pay a percentage of the seminar fee, say 15%, to an expert speaker.)

26. Write and publish a manual about how to make money from property. In the manual include chapters on: buying and selling land; buying properties for conversion and renovation; investing in property, etc. Use direct mail and mail order to sell copies of this manual to opportunity seekers.

27. Found and run a school of investment. Give tuition to solo students and groups about different types of investments such as shares, gilt-edged securities, unit trusts, USM, antiques, stamps, art, etc. For each area of investment prepare lesson plans and follow these closely.

28. Make a selection of children's prayer plaques: wooden wall plaques which feature popular prayers. The prayers might be painted on, or burned into, the wood.

29. Start a craft business which uses interesting foreign coins to make jewellery. Incorporate coins into pendants, bracelets, brooches, necklaces and earrings. Alternatively, make jewellery which features reproduction coins from the ancient world.

30. Use small seashells strung together to make necklaces. Find a trade source of small seashells and either set up your own production line, or employ home workers. Sell the finished necklaces from a market stall or get them stocked at suitable retail outlets.

About the Author

Nick Summers runs More Than Articles Article Directory, a directory dedicated to offering the best of the web's articles formatted the way you want them. Visit www.morethanarticles.com today for all your content requirements.

Can anyone explain briefly how to rubber stamp and then 'emboss' it with the 3D shiny raised outline?

My sister's friend made her a gorgeous stamped greeting card and all along the stamp lines she did something to make the outline of the stamp on the paper to make it raised, shiny, 3D. I would love to learn this process but haven't found a simple explanation. My sister told me that her friend had to use some type of powder and then had to blow hot air on it with an embossing tool-is this correct? Is it expensive?

You have to use a special embossing ink and embossing powder. And yes you do need a heat gun. They come in a range of prices and sizes and shapes. You would need to just go to a hobby store and price one. You ink your paper and before the ink dries, shake the powder on and tap the excess off then heat set it.

Added: What I have found easier and cheaper, is to get a little bottle of clear crystal fabric paint and after I stamp my image, I go over the lines with the fine tip of the paint. It draws the color of the regular ink you use up in to the paint and it is raised, plus you get the pretty crystal glitter shine. I bought the Polly Mark Dimensional fabric paint, but you can use any brand you like. It only cost about 99 cents. Just be sure to buy the little bottle, because the tip is real fine so that you can get a fine line or add pressure and get a thicker line...Might be worth a try before you spend the extra money on a heat gun and special ink and powder...This is how I made my Christmas cards this past year. They turned out beautiful.

Added..More: After the request to be added to your contacts, I took a look at your profile...I LOVE TO GARDEN ALSO!! It has turned into something my children love to do with me. It is just such a peaceful learning experience for us all. Thank you.

Robert Jackson worries mayoral control oversight committee will be a rubber-stamp for Bloomberg