I love business ideas – especially those which are changing life and/or lucrative. I might even interested in turning one or two into a startup! The big question is, where to look for great entrepreneurial ideas? This blog post will spotlight 5 sites you must visit for startup ideas. Check ’em out!
1. Springwise
Springwise is my long-time favourite. The site receives help from Springspotters Network, a vibrant community with over 15,000 spotters worldwide, who tip and pitch Springwise with great, unique ideas they spot in where they live. It’s a creative community worth-joining.
What you will get from Springwise? A LOT. You can read interesting stories on startups trying to solve age-old problems or fill a gap in the local market – in blogging style. Some of the ideas are noble; some others are quirky; basically, you can access all kind of startups, in various categories, from various countries. Want social entrepreneurial ideas? The site has ’em. Want niche culinary business ideas? Springwise also has ’em.
Want some ideas you can start in where you live? Why not search ideas by countries to learn what worked in your region, for accessing more relevant trends?
2. Trendwatching.com
Trendwatching.com is a more consumer-focused site compared to Springwise. They publish trend briefings regularly (new, more responsive brands are popular right now,) updating trend enthusiasts and businesses alike with hot-off-the-stove trends and innovations. It is also getting help from trend watchers around the world, including Springspotters Network.
What will you get from Trendwatching.com? I mainly use it to keep myself posted with what’s hot today. As the briefings represent consumers’ mind, gearing our products and services toward them is only logical – and Trendwatching.com is a great tool for that.
3. Trend Hunter
As the name implies, what you will find in the site is all the latest trends, specifically in fashion, technology and everything else in between – powered by 114,000 trend hunters all around the world. You might not get some startups covered in Trend Hunter, but you will definitely get plenty of inspirations from the posts – mainly image posts.
What will you get from Trend Hunter? Well, Trend Hunter’s trends reports have helped the media, innovators, entrepreneurs and brands to discover some ideas worth stealing – legally. You will get trends ranked by day, week or month.
For example: If you are in fashion business, this site can help you tap on to the latest fashion trends for getting ideas for your next line; if you are in stickers and decals business (love these luggage decals!) you can get ideas on some cool sticker and decal ideas – already market-tested. So you can use those as an inspiration for your next products launch; as you can see – the possibilities are limitless!
4. Google Trends
Okay, okay – this might be uncool to many of you guys, but I think Google Trends rocks in many ways. Although it’s not sporting interesting articles, photos or videos, the site can give you others can’t: Do-It-Yourself trend discovery and analysis.
Not specifically designed for business purpose, Google Trends is a pretty powerful tool for detecting business trends. With the most recent addition of YouTube trends data into the site, it has becme a power-tool for market researchers, business developers and entrepreneurs.
Want to get your product to the market via video marketing but don’t know what works today? Just search Yahoo Trends and there you go – a graph showing you what’s hot right now on YouTube (and yes – YouTube popular videos are no longer dominated by dogs and cats – goats are trendy – but it’s perhaps only momentarily!)
5. Entrepreneur.com Business Ideas
Well, instead of a site, this is actually a section or a hub of a site; but the section is HUGE and you can get literally hundreds of startup ideas from the hub. Yes, you must visit the Business Ideas hub from one of the most popular entrepreneurship online publications, Entrepreneur.com.
You can browse for coverage on business ideas in various category: Low-costs, restaurants, retails, and so on. Many of the ideas are not new, but some are simply intriguing – like this one, born out of a breakup.
Takeaway
Obviously, there are many more sites you can go visit for startup ideas. The 5 I suggest above are my personal favourites. With that being said, you are most welcomed to share your favourites via the comment section.
Ivan Widjaya
Founder/Editor BizPenguin.com
