Truly new concepts are few and far between. Many new products or new business ideas are simply spin-offs of old ones. Inline skates are one good example. Essentially, they are ice skates on wheels. And then there are David's Cookies. Yummy? Yes! A new concept? No. What is David's Cookies, after all, except a specialized bakery? Look around you and see what old standbys you can turn into hot new idea for your business.
Don't limit your thinking to manufactured products, either. Think about services you could provide in person, or on the web. Think about services your customers or friends find annoying and time consuming and find a way to make them easy - easy enough that your target market will find it more efficient or cost effective to buy the service from you than do the work themselves. One such service: PRWeb, which makes it fast and easy to distribute press releases to the media. Another: Profnet, a service that helps writers find subjects to interview for articles.
