Financial Times

Are you looking for a business idea?
By Nilooka Dissanayake
"Do you know of good business ideas?" is a question I hear almost everyday. I always say that starting a small business is a more intimate thing than getting married. So you have to pick a business idea to suit your particular needs.

Would you ask me to choose a marriage partner for you? And since I have been repeating this stock reply too often, and got bored with it myself, I decided to do something about it.

What did I do? Over the past few months, our team at the Athwela Business Journal, the Sinhala business magazine, spoke to many people about potential business ideas. We spoke to bankers, especially the regional development banks.

We asked them to recommend projects that are suitable for start up businesses at the small and medium size enterprises. We also spoke to provincial directors of agriculture and asked for agribusiness projects for which they saw a ready market or a growing trend.
We ended up with over 125 potential business ideas. We also asked them for the following for each project:

* Name and description of project
* Nature of product or service
* Market potential and future trends
* Geographical areas applicable (district wise)
* Organisations (besides the banks) that will help entrepreneurs by contributing technical know how, expertise and marketing infrastructure (if any)

All this, we tabulated into over a dozen pages and included in the Athwela Special Supplement on Starting a Business. Now, my dear readers, I did not mention this to you before because, there is an unwritten, unspoken understanding between your business editor and myself that I shall not flagrantly promote the magazines I edit.

Athwela Business Journal happens to be one of them. Here I make an exception because, I felt it is unfair to keep this wealth of information from you when I know that you can benefit from it.

Your next question would be "What else is included in that Special Supplement on Starting a Business?" It has many things that will guide the business start up or the person dreaming of starting a business.

If you are still dreaming of a business, you will have these concerns: What is a business? Why should you get into it? What have you to do? Are you, as an individual, suited for business? Do you have what it takes to be a good entrepreneur? You can find answers to all this within the Supplement. If not, you will have the guidance necessary to answer these from within yourself.

Secondly, the Special Supplement helps you with selecting a business idea. Should you start from what you like? Should you start from what people, such as you and your family or friends, will need or prefer to have; things that are not currently available in the market? Should you look for a specific customer segment and try to solve their problems? Should you look at the market and try to change, adapt, improve or better something that is already there? The Supplement also tells you of several techniques you can use to generate novel ideas.

It goes on to describe how 10 entrepreneurs from diverse fields such as clothing and retailing, instant foods, pottery and arts and crafts and design selected their business ideas. Once you select a few business ideas, the next thing is to think deeply about these projects and to choose the best out of the lot.

That is all homework for you. But it will be an enjoyable task and will make you very intimately associated with the project. Consider this the courtship stage of your "marriage" but do try to look deeply into all the nitty grittys. Don't just stick to day dreaming and sweet nothings as most people do in choosing a marriage partner!

How does one choose between a number of projects is another question. I believe that the same format and approach that you use in preparing a business plan can be applied for this as well. That way, you will be forced to focus and put down in writing the project. In trying to do so you will find so many weak or trouble spots and discover that your project may not be as attractive as you first thought.

To help you in this process, the Athwela Special Supplement on Staring a Business also includes the basics of business planning process. There is also a questionnaire, "How Bright is Your Business Idea?" to help you revisit your business idea.

Many small business startups end up on the rocks because they did not understand their own product, the needs of their customers, the market, how it operates and their competitors and their activities. There are questionnaires and articles in the Special Supplement that draw the new entrepreneurs attention to these areas.

Entrepreneurs can learn from veterans and professionals and from fellow entrepreneurs who have travelled the long road of business. Victor Hettigoda of the Siddhalepa Group shares his views on succeeding in business. "Keep your eye on the changes taking place in your business environment," he advises.

When the environment keeps on changing, it is difficult for you to think of your business as a stable static entity. It also needs to keep pace with the changes." Others who offer advice to entrepreneurs include Lal Nanayakkara, former Chairman of the Peoples Bank, an entrepreneur himself. Nanayakkara offers valuable advice, a point that I have personally never come across in business literature when he says that "an entrepreneur must choose a business idea after considering his age."

The writer is the Managing Editor of Athwela Business Journal, the Sinhala business magazine for start ups and small and medium enterprises.

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