{"id":1404,"date":"2018-02-05T08:26:33","date_gmt":"2018-02-05T16:26:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/?p=1404"},"modified":"2018-02-20T20:37:23","modified_gmt":"2018-02-21T04:37:23","slug":"business-ideas-2018","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/business-ideas-2018\/","title":{"rendered":"Business ideas: How I&#8217;m launching a business in 2018"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>UPDATE: Three of my business ideas have launched!<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/b3593574bfba\/5-minute-tips\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">5-Minute Tips<\/a>: Morning tips in your inbox from the world&#8217;s most interesting people<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.producthunt.com\/upcoming\/is-it-paleo-2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Is it Paleo?<\/a>: An easy way to tell if the food at your local grocery store is Paleo or not<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mailchi.mp\/f60c688fa246\/bloom-podcast\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Bloom: Life&#8217;s Untold Stories<\/a>: Beautiful life stories you never knew you needed to hear<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>&#8212;<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve always had a lot of excuses.<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;Now&#8217;s not the right time.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I don&#8217;t have any good ideas.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;I&#8217;m not sure what to do next.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>But beneath it all, <strong>I&#8217;ve always been afraid to launch my own business:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Afraid of failing<\/li>\n<li>Afraid of risking something new<\/li>\n<li>Afraid of making no money and having to move back in with my parents<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I can keep letting fear run my life&#8230; or I can take a risk to be happier.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In 2018, one of my BIGGEST goals is to launch my own profitable idea.<\/p>\n<p>By June 2018, I want to be making $2,000 per month. By January 2019, my goal is $50,000 per month.<\/p>\n<p>I set the end goal REALLY high because it pushes me to take big risks and think outside the box. If it was a small amount, it would be less motivating.<\/p>\n<p><strong>With my goal set, here are the 3 steps I&#8217;m taking to launch my business ideas.<\/strong><\/p>\n<h2>Step 1: Come up with 10 Business Ideas per Day<\/h2>\n<p>Inspired by <a href=\"https:\/\/jamesaltucher.com\/\">James Altucher<\/a> and my friend <a href=\"https:\/\/webuild.io\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Evan Shoemaker<\/a>, I pushed myself to come up with 10 ideas per day.<\/p>\n<p>The process was messy. A bunch of days I forgot to do (which meant I caught up on following days). But from December 9th to January 31st, I came up with 550 ideas.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1405 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/dmkthinks-blog-businessideas-10ideas-e1517846942358.png\" alt=\"Business ideas\" width=\"720\" height=\"596\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The goal was to push myself to think outside the box. No restrictions, no limits&#8230; just crazy ideas.<\/p>\n<p>It was difficult, but powerful. Try it for yourself to see.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Action Step:\u00a0<\/strong>Every morning for a week, write 10 business ideas (or ideas to make your life better). Record your creative business ideas in a Google Doc to revisit later.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 2: Narrow Down Your Business Ideas<\/h2>\n<p>After I came up with a list of business ideas, it was time to narrow them down.<\/p>\n<p>I created a second Google Docs file \u2014 and named it <em>Let&#8217;s GOOO!!! David&#8217;s 2018 idea launching<\/em> \u2014 to help inspire me.<\/p>\n<p>In this doc, I wrote a basic launch plan and monthly revenue goals. Then, I picked my four best ideas \u2014 and asked my girlfriend Hana, plus my friends <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epicgardening.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Kevin Espiritu<\/a>, Evan Shoemaker, and <a href=\"http:\/\/scotttousley.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Scott Tousley<\/a>, for their four favorite ideas from my list.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1406\" src=\"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/dmkthinks-blog-bizideas-4ideas-e1517847278733.png\" alt=\"Business ideas narrowed down\" width=\"720\" height=\"467\" \/><\/p>\n<p>My plan was to launch one idea each week in February.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of friends asked questions about my launch:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><em>&#8220;How are you going to promote?&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;Aren&#8217;t you worried you won&#8217;t get enough results?&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<li><em>&#8220;What&#8217;s your long-term plan?&#8221;<\/em><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>My short answer to a lot of these questions was, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>I think most people get really caught up in trying to perfect everything before launching. I know I did.<\/p>\n<p>But I&#8217;m modeling my &#8220;four ideas in four weeks&#8221; approach after\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/tim.blog\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tim Ferriss<\/a>&#8216; theory that it&#8217;s better to set a date of launch and launch in time than aim to get 100%. This philosophy helps prevent analysis paralysis.<\/p>\n<p>Or, as a mentor once told me, sometimes it&#8217;s better to launch a bad idea than no idea at all.<\/p>\n<p>My friends and I listed our four favorite ideas based on my list. From the lists all of us wrote, I picked the top four ideas I wanted to put my focus.<\/p>\n<p>Then, I was ready for the last step.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Action Step:\u00a0<\/strong>Having a list of ideas is great, but it&#8217;s important to narrow down and take action. This month, pick one idea from your weekly list of 10 ideas and launch it.<\/p>\n<h2>Step 3: Launch One (or More) Business Ideas<\/h2>\n<p>It&#8217;s go time.<\/p>\n<p>With my ideas picked, I started putting together my basic promotion plan.<\/p>\n<p>The goal wasn&#8217;t perfection. It was to share with as many people as I could, knowing the time restrictions from my full-time job and life. At the end of the month, my goal is to see if any business ideas had any good results so I can build them further.<\/p>\n<p>I created a new Google Doc \u2014\u00a0<em>You CAN do it!!! David&#8217;s 2018 biz launch plan<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 and got ready for launch.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1407\" src=\"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/02\/dmkthinks-blog-bizideas-launchplan-e1517847733261.png\" alt=\"Business ideas launch plan\" width=\"720\" height=\"427\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The green highlighted rows are what I&#8217;ve completed so far. You&#8217;ll also notice the little comment marks in each row \u2014 that&#8217;s how I note who I&#8217;ve emailed and details about the task.<\/p>\n<p>The final step to launching my business ideas is still a work-in-progress.<\/p>\n<p>Next week, with my second idea, I might update the launch plan and remove some promotion items while I add others.<\/p>\n<p>We&#8217;ll see how it goes, but I&#8217;m excited for the journey.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Action Step:\u00a0<\/strong>After you come up with the one idea YOU want to launch this month, think about a promotion plan. It doesn&#8217;t need to be complicated \u2014 I recommend one different promotion task per day for a week. See how it goes&#8230; and it might just work out!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UPDATE: Three of my business ideas have launched! 5-Minute Tips: Morning tips in your inbox from the world&#8217;s most interesting people Is it Paleo?: An easy way to tell if the food at your local grocery store is Paleo or not Bloom: Life&#8217;s Untold Stories: Beautiful life stories you never knew you needed to hear [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1409,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[132],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marketing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1404"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1423,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1404\/revisions\/1423"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmkthinks.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}