Small Business Entrepreneur Blog

You would say that sending text messages from your mobile phone is old technology and that is way too hard to type in something to make it worthwhile.  And then, we have  mobile phone advertising -  I guess this is not  news either, and that you saw everything that could be done there.

But… Hold on. We then have young entrepreneur Derek Johnson that while being a college student that in 2007 saw an opportunity to grow a business around text messaging for groups: “We started Tatango to solve a simple problem that many of us faced trying to manage and organize groups we belonged to. We needed an easier way to communicate with fellow group members who were constantly on the go and not in front of a computer. We knew what we had developed was pretty amazing, but never could have imagined it spreading to athletic teams, bloggers, politicians, schools, celebrities, parents, churches, musicians and organizations which are so diverse from one another.”

The service grew within a few months of launch to over 400,000 users and over 15 million text messages. That’s quite amazing for a business started in the parents basement.

See Derek’s interview on Entrepreneur-interviews to find out how you can turn a simple idea into an innovative business.

Most often people are afraid starting a new business because they can’t find that unique idea that would make their business great. They think that if they don’t come up with an innovative idea, they are unable to make money and their business will fail.

I remember having these thought myself 3 years ago when I founded my company. It seemed that everybody was doing the same and that meant a new business couldn’t stand a chance.

Funny thing is that actually most business are completely non-innovative, and my advice is as well to start with something, even if it’s not unique. Starting with something is always better than not doing anything waiting for that great idea to happen.

I have 2 resources to support my thoughts. First would be Jessica Livingston’s book “Founders at work” (my review here). Jessica has collected an impressive set of stories and interviews how big boys (now) actually started their businesses – Hotmail, Bloglines, Gmail and all the rest. If you go through the book, you will get that most of the business that now worth millions started by something simple (i.e. a site done in college years) and some don’t even made money for quite a while. And most importantly, their founders never started thinking it’s going to be the next holly grail, and some failed few times before doing it right.

The second resource, is Angus Loten’s article called “The Accidental Millionaires“. “Some of the best business ideas happen almost by accident. From the inventors of the Slinky to the couple behind the software that powers much of the blogosphere, a look at entrepreneurs who took adversity and half-baked ideas and turned them into wildly successful companies.”

Here are some samples from Angus’s article:

• Richard and Betty James
  Previous Life: Navy tool worker and homemaker
  Big Break: Saw a spring coil fall off a table
  Bottom Line: Called it a Slinky and sold 250 million of them
• Josh Abramson and Ricky Van Veen
  Previous Lives: College students
  Big Break: Created a website to trade jokes while attending different colleges
  Bottom line: The site now boasts more than 8 million unique visitors a month
• Carole Nash
  Previous Life: Laid-off receptionist
  Lucky Break: Was given a small portfolio of insurance policies as a severance package
  Bottom Line: Recently sold her insurance businesses for more than $100 million.

What about me? As probably any entrepreneur out there, I’m still looking for that great idea. But in the meanwhile I’ve founded a “regular business”. And this greatly improves my chances to find that innovative business idea.