You are ready to jump into product creation. You keep hearing every one saying "Being the product owner is where the money is" and that is where you want to be.

But what do you create? Where do you get the idea? Well the answer to those questions are as different as each person, but I'm going to share a few that have worked for me. Keep in mind the general thoughts on a product: it will need to either solve a problem or fill a need.

• Forums - This can be a virtual gold mine. Skim over the first few pages in the forum of your choice. Look for any common questions. (Hopefully if this is your first product, you are looking in a niche that you're familiar with. This will cut down on your research time) Now use the search function with the words from what you have found so far, to see all the questions that have been asked about that particular topic. You will also want to pay attention to whether there was a solution given. For an example we are going to use the 'gardening' niche. You have searched and you see question after question asked about growing and caring for 'orchids'. Turns out this is right up your alley (if it's not that's ok, just keep searching for something that is) Now you have your idea for a product.

• Magazines.com - This one doesn't allow you to gauge the interest as much. But keep this in mind, magazines are in the business of making money, so they provide content that their readers want. Browse through the magazines, looking at what is on the front cover, looking for common themes. (This is also a good place to get ideas for articles later)

• Amazon.com - Do a search for books in your niche. Sort this search by 'bestsellers' and you will get a very good picture of the type of products that are selling. Most people will buy any information they can get on their particular 'passion', humans are funny that way. So don't look at all the books about growing orchids (from our example above) and think 'oh no there is so much information out there already'. Take that as a sign that people will buy information about that subject.

Brainstorming

Go through each of these and just write down ideas. Don't censor yourself. If it pops into your head, it should be on your paper. You can sift through later, but at this stage WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN. You should end up with a very good list of ideas.

These are just a few of the ways I use to come up with ideas for a new product. This should produce a list you can get ideas from for a while.

What is your favorite way to come up with ideas?

Talk soon,