Many entrepreneurs have spent several months and years researching and testing business ideas to know how they will work, and several others have spent fortunes paying for business ideas they believe will work.

You need ideas to succeed as a newbie entrepreneur or as an established organisation, and the truth is that every successful business organisation or multi-national company took off from a single seed-idea from a single individual.

Generating ideas that work is not so easy but it can be done. You only need to open your eyes and apply some research procedures and you’re set to launch.

It may require months and years of thoughtful research to generate a workable idea and it may just take a conversation with the right person to spark off ideas that will sustain you and your generation for life. To generate viable business ideas in a few hours, the following are what you need to do:

Relate with consumers and community people

The best and surest way to obtain information on what to do business-wise is to relate with people who could be your potential customers.

People at the grassroots and at the community level are the best to relate with if you desire to obtain ideas on the kinds of product and service to serve them. They know where the shoe pinches and they are free at voicing their views and oppositions and whatever feedback that will help you to generate viable business ideas.

Speak to professional experts

Speak to industry professionals and thought-leaders at seminars and business events or anywhere you meet with them and they will inadvertently supply you with results of researches they have conducted into the consumer markets.

They have been in the industry before you and they have greater experience at dealing with consumers and at conducting researches into consumer wants and behaviours. You’d gain a lot from these interactions and even obtain insights into what you need to do and how you need to position yourself.

Move around your neighbourhood, community, and towns

Walk around your neighbourhood, community, and town and have a feel of what people are going through. Try to buy or sell anything and listen to what people say; you must also look at what can be missing or done to improve the community or lots of the people and – bingo, you’d have a viable idea that is worth pursuing within hours.

Keep an ear to the ground

Keep your ears open and your eyes peeled to understand what people are passing through and what they are complaining about.

This is the best way to obtain feedback on products and services, and you can use this feedback to generate product ideas to meet the needs of the people. You won’t know what customers need until you are able to access grapevine information and process them for your own good.

Pay for information

Buy newspapers and pay to attend business seminars and do whatever is worth doing to secure credible information on what you need to do to meet the needs of consumers.

Pay for information and you’d get it within hours or days. Information is key to generating ideas and you must do whatever is in your capacity to obtain information that would help you generate or process business ideas for your own good.