I, like most entrepreneurs, have “entrepreneurial ADD”.  I can’t stop thinking about businesses to start.

In order to be able to sleep at night, I had to force myself to come up with a filter I could use to narrow in on ideas that had sticking power (for me personally, not because the idea was necessarily more sound from a business perspective) so I could discard the rest.

Here is what I came up with.

The first portion is focused on making sure I have the vision and emotional commitment to the idea, and was borrowed from a book:

I must be able to bring all of these to anything I consider pursuing:

• A clear Conception of what I want, a vivid vision, a goal clearly imagined.
• A strong Confidence that I can attain my goal.
• A focused Concentration on what it takes to reach my goal.
• A stubborn Consistency in pursuing my vision.
• An emotional Commitment to the importance of what I’m doing.
• A good Character to guide me and keep me on proper course.
• A Capacity to enjoy the process along the way.

I then added to that list the following criteria that are more focused on the business dynamics of the opportunity:

• Fast to start and test
• Be able to start with little or no outside funding
• Payback of initial investment within 18-24 monthsBusinesses in which you “work once, earn many times” (initial sale leads to many repeat purchases and initial product/service creation can be leverage in multiple formats)
• Ideally automatic, recurring revenue
• Can be managed from anywhere – ideally web-based
• Something that I’ll still find fun 5 or 10 years from now and that other people think is fun too!

I hope someone finds this helpful.  It’s been a great filter for me, and it forces me to find ideas that will really be productive for me.

MRC