I'm always confused by people who don't have an idea but want to start a business. Surely, an idea has to come first (even if the business ends up doing someth

I'm always confused by people who don't have an idea but want to start a business. Surely, an idea has to come first (even if the business ends up doing something else). I maintain an ideas list which is added too weekly. They're not all gold dust and so far none of them have been strong enough for my to quit my day job but I am interested and excited by a few and actively working on them. I think you need to have a desire to build XXXX before you have a desire to build a business, otherwise you're putting the cart before the horse. Anyway, with that useless rant out of the way, the best way is simply to think of something that annoys you (or annoys someone you know). Actually, don't think of the problem, think of the solution when you next come across an annoyance. And don''t go for something just because it sounds "cool". There's lots of talk about finding the "pain" that a particular customer/market has and solving it -- I've heard it so often it sounds corny but it's not. Here's an idea that's been sitting on my list for a while: new album notifications. I don't subscribe to individual band newsletters or read music magazines, and my favourite artists aren't necessarily heard on the radio, so how am I to hear about their new releases? Well, Windows Media Player has a comprehensive list of my music and what I actually listen to (an a plugin interface). How hard would it be to poll Amazon once a month for new albums from my 20 favourite artists? Business model: Amazon affiliate sales by allowing users to buy/preorder through your application. Sure its not the best idea in the world but just an example of how I went from a problem to a solution (aka a business idea -- and, no, I'm not working on it).