Brainstorming is a fun and effective way to stimulate the creative side of your brain. If you want to leverage the post-pandemic surge in business, you may be thinking about starting a business. But ideas can be hard to come by; especially when you feel that time is of the essence. The pressure to come up with a viable business idea within a certain timeframe can make it even harder to think creatively. Thankfully, there are tools available to help you brainstorm your next business idea.

What Does It Mean to Brainstorm?

If you’ve never done brainstorming before, you may not know exactly what it means to brainstorm. Brainstorming isn’t just sitting around trying to think of something. You already know that doesn’t always work, especially when you feel pressured or put on the spot to hurry up and think of something great. Brainstorming is a way of generating ideas that are completely out of the box. You can brainstorm by yourself or with another person or with a group of people. The idea is to record every single idea, no matter how ludicrous it might sound. The reason is that ideas all lead somewhere. Follow that path, and you may just land on something that’s completely new and innovative; the kind of business idea that consumers would flock toward.

Physical Tools For Brainstorming

There are many physical tools you can use to assist your brainstorming session. They include:
Paper and pens
Whiteboard
Brainstorming cards
Bowl and slips of paper
What you can do with these tools is have everyone just write down or call out their ideas. Make sure everyone knows that anything goes. The idea is not to hold back. Every idea is a good idea, because every idea has the potential to either be “the” idea or to lead to “the” idea.

Brainstorming Cards

Brainstorming cards are physical cards that you can use to help come up with your next business idea or just about anything else you’re trying to do. Created by the Board of Innovation, each deck comes with 52 cards. The way it works is, you randomly choose one of the cards in the deck. Use what’s written on the card as inspiration to come up with ideas. It’s recommended that you spend about 20 minutes on each card. You can use this tool alone or with your brainstorming team.

Study Trends

Whatever kind of business you think you might want to start, you’re going to need customers. It’s always a good idea to get in early on a trend so you can leverage consumer interest. There are many “threads” of trends happening in the world at any given time. But they can all be broken down into basic groups:

Consumer Trends

This includes things that have to do with consumer behavior. For instance, you might want to study the recent consumer trends of using mobile devices for shopping online, downloading store apps for shopping, having consumer goods delivered, etc.

Technology Trends

Technology trends are related to things like virtual reality gaming, biometrics, online security, artificial intelligence, etc. This area is rapidly developing on a daily basis, so if this is the area where your business interests lie, you’ll really need to keep your finger on the pulse.

Market Trends

Market trends have to do with the economy, how people acquire, spend and save money, price indexes and even alternative forms of currency like Bitcoin, Ethereum and more. A good understanding of market trends could help you to make or save considerable sums of money.

Regulation Trends

You always need to know what the laws and local regulations are regarding your intended business model. For instance, if you plan to get into the natural supplements space, you’ll want to carefully follow the FDA’s guidelines, interests and announcements. Tracking regulation trends can help you stay on the right side of the legal system as well as prevent you from accidentally entering into an area that will soon be prohibited. It can also help you position yourself early in emerging markets, like the way CBD became a billion dollar market a few years ago.

New trends are always developing, even as older trends surge and wane. Focus on trends in categories that are relevant to your business. For instance, you don’t need to spend valuable time studying fashion trends if you intend to get into the automotive business. The earlier you can spot a trend and position your business idea, the more likely it is that you’ll be able to benefit from it financially.

Monitoring trends isn’t too hard. You can set up Google alerts for your areas of interest to get news and other articles delivered to your inbox. Subscribe to print or digital trade magazines in your niche for the latest trends and industry updates.

Vision Board

A vision board is a visual tool to help you gain clearer focus on your goals. The board can be done with physical materials, or you can make a digital vision board using an online tool like Canva or Pinterest. Fill the vision board with inspiring words, images and materials that speak to your business interests. For example, you might be inspired by a swatch of fabric or leather, a word or phrase or an old photograph. All you need to do is tape or pin the items to the board in any manner you like. It can be organized like a grid or haphazard. Looking at the vision board and rearranging things, adding things and removing things can help you to pinpoint ideas for your next business idea.

When it comes to starting a new business, your CPA is an invaluable resource. Not only is your CPA trained to help you with finances and taxes; they also work with other business owners and can offer insight into trends, business models, and just different ways to set up your new business.. Your CPA can be a team member as you get your business up and running.