Good Business Ideas Outside the Box
The field of business is very competitive, and most obviously profitable fields have hundreds of businesses competing in them. Engaging some creativity and thinking "outside the box" can send you into a field that few other people have thought of. Providing customers with a product or service that they didn't know they needed can start you on the road to success.
Other People Are Reading
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Facebook
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Facebook has become a byword for Internet success stories, but in 2004 when it was founded, it was little more than a toy for students in a single university to chat with each other. Through a combination of programming genius, savvy marketing and being in the right place at the right time, founder Mark Zuckerberg is now a multi-billionaire overseeing a website with 500 million users. The amazing thing about these numbers is that Facebook is free to use; all of Zuckerberg's money comes from ad placements and Facebook games such as Farmville.
Self-Storage
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Like Facebook, self-storage units are a common sight that most people don't think twice about. When they began, however, self-storage facilities were a good example of a business person thinking outside of the box. Building a facility and renting out units for people to put stuff in was a strange, and seemingly not very practical, business idea. It didn't seem likely that many people would pay good money to put their stuff into someone else's garage. Contrary to expectations, the idea of self storage facilities was so successful that they are now a growth industry.
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Working Vacations
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Working vacations allow people who are interested in other ways of life to travel to other places and help out with building, farms or social work. They are often associated with non-profit organizations or charities that work in developing countries. The idea that someone would pay to work, rather than work to get paid, is counter-intuitive, yet working vacations are becoming more and more common. There are enough people in wealthy countries with disposable income and an interest in other cultures and how they work that working vacations have become a viable business model.
Sky Writing
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When an unemployed person decides that he needs to make some money, "sky writing" isn't usually the first thing that jumps into his head. The market is small and the expenses are high, but if someone happens to have an airplane, there could be money in sky writing. Advertisers or individuals with something on their minds pay to write things in smoke over public gatherings and events. Given the expenses of owning and operating an airplane, it's hard get rich as a sky writer, but there's the pleasure of saying "I'm a sky writer" when meeting people.
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References
- Photo Credit business 2 image by Nathalie P from Fotolia.com
