What Are You Here to Offer?
One of the things I run into more than almost anything else when I'm coaching is this: people who deeply want to be entrepreneurs but don't yet know what their thing is. They have the hunger. They have the drive. What they don't have yet is the idea.
And honestly, that part can take longer than anything else.
I think a lot of people assume the hard part is building the business. The legal stuff, the finances, the marketing, the team. And yes, all of that is real work. But before any of that, there's this quieter, more personal question that has to get answered first. What is it that you actually want to offer the world?
The sweet spot, when you can find it, is something that does two things at once. It brings you some kind of joy, and it meets a need that people around you will actually pay you to solve. That combination is not always easy to find, and I don't want to make it sound like it just falls into your lap. But when you land on something that hits both of those marks, you'll feel it.
This is why I keep a running list of business ideas. Not because every idea is a great one, but because the list itself is valuable. Some of the things on my list are boring on the surface. Some of them are a little more exciting. But I have things on there like owning laundromats, renting out a couple of campers, renting motorcycles, and one of my personal favorites, a Christmas tree farm in the mountains of Virginia where families come out, cut down their own tree, and stay on the property for the whole experience. That one still gets me.
The point is, those ideas showed up in small moments. A passing thought. A trip somewhere. A conversation. And if I hadn't been paying attention and writing them down, they would have been gone.
So if you're in this early stage of trying to figure out what your thing is, start a list. Don't judge it. Don't edit it. Just capture it.
Here's something else I want to say, because I think it matters. You don't have to be solving a massive global problem to be doing something meaningful. I am under no illusion that the businesses I run are curing disease or changing the trajectory of civilization. That's not what this is about, at least not for me. What I know I can do is offer small solutions. Moments of quality. Products and experiences that genuinely make someone's day a little better.
And beyond the customer, there's something else that makes this worth it for me. The chance to work alongside people I actually care about. To build something together. To offer a fair income to people who are working hard and trying to build a meaningful life of their own. That part never gets old.
So when you're sitting there wondering what your idea is, here's the question I'd start with. What is the thing you could offer that would matter to somebody? It doesn't have to be flashy. It doesn't have to be original. It just has to be real, and it has to be yours.
Start there. Write it down. The list will grow.
