Your Move

Your Move: The Underdog’s Guide to Building Your Business is Ramit Sethi’s no-BS guide to starting your own business that’ll help you escape the 9-to-5, all the way from coming up with profitable ideas, overcoming psychological barriers and figuring out who to sell to to growing, maintaining and systematizing your business in the future.

Let’s start at ground zero. You’re considering yourself to be normal, not particularly skilled in anything and have no ideas. Zip. Nada. Where should you even begin to think business? This is where Ramit shines: Breaking things down to the simplest step you can take. He’s used the same process for all of his 20+ products and it all starts with thinking about what you already pay for yourself. Before you even begin to worry about what you could sell or teach, bear this in mind: If you don’t create something people want to buy, it won’t matter how good it is. Nonprofits, students, restaurants, these are all bad target groups, because, well, they don’t want to spend money! You have to go where the fish are. Here’s how in three steps: Step 1: Start with ideas that suck. Yes, you read that right. Give yourself permission to be shitty at first. Take off the pressure. Then go. Step 2: Answer four questions. The following questions will help you find the intersection of what you’re good at, what excites you and what you can sell. It’s similar to finding your Eulerian Destiny. What do I already pay for? If you pay someone to help with this, chances are, you’re not the only one. List ten things. What skills do I have? Write down the ten first things you can think of. No filtering! Remember step 1. What do my friends say I’m great at? This is similar to the last question, but more revealing. If you can ask strangers, get their feedback too. If not, stick with friends and family. List 3-5 items. What do I do on Saturday morning? Step 3: Use the Demand Matrix to validate your idea. Whatever you have as a result might still not be good enough to get people to whip out their wallet. Since you can’t pre-sell without an audience, you can at least use a simple tool Ramit calls the Demand Matrix to see if people are likely to pay. The idea is simple. Think about how many people will want what you make and how much they’d be willing to pay. A high-price, high-demand product, like an iPhone, is a golden goose. With many people but a smaller price, you can attack the masses, like with books. Having few customers is still okay if you sell something…