Exploring Business Opportunities

It all starts with an idea. Ideas for new businesses come from many places — problems you see, changes taking place in your neighborhood, new advances in technology or perhaps your knowledge of a better way of doing something. We can help you generate ideas for your business.

Not all ideas make good business opportunities. Your idea must survive the "marketplace" test. A successful business generates a profit for the owner by selling products or services that customers need at prices they are willing to pay. We can help you assess whether your idea is a good business opportunity.

How do you know if your idea will pass the "marketplace" test? You can ask the following questions to begin to evaluate your idea:

Who would buy this product/service?
How much would they be willing to pay for it?
Where would they buy it?
Who are my closest competitors?
Is my product/service worse or better than those of my competitors?
Is the timing right for the product/service?

If you are exploring business ownership, a good place to start is to speak with our business counselor about your business goals. We're help you determine how we can best help you move forward.

The BOI business counselor will discuss our four-step program with you. The program is designed to help you move forward from exploring business ideas to starting and growing a successful business. While we can't guarantee business success, we believe that if you go through our Four Steps program you will significantly increase your chances of starting or growing a winning business.