Hello SOTGC community,
Have you always wanted to start your own business or break into a different industry, but weren’t sure where to start or how to come up with an innovative business concept? My advice … let your daily life inspire you! In this blog I’m going to share with you four new business concepts that I came up with while planning my wedding.
- Chiavari Chairs. I didn’t even know what a Chiavari chair was when I started planning my wedding. In case you are like me and are wondering what the heck a Chiavari chair is; I’ll explain. These are the chairs you often see at wedding receptions that look like they are made entirely of bamboo with the exception of the seat cushion. I’ve found that they aren’t that sturdy, aren’t that comfortable and are CRAZY expensive to rent! In Southern California, their rental fee ranges from $10 to $16 dollars per chair! So in case you haven’t guessed … my grand idea for a new business is to start a Chiavari chair rental company! I’m no math whiz, but with these steep rental fees it doesn’t seem like it would take long to recoup your investment and begin profiting.
- Candle Holders and Glass Vases. This is another concept centered on extremely overpriced rental items. Our florist originally wanted to charge us $3 per mercury votive candle holder that we were going to rent and their competitors were charging similar rental fees. At $3 per candle, times fifteen tables, times ten candles per table … well you get the idea. After tax, we were going to be spending about $500 just on little votive candles and that didn’t even include the larger candles that would be used for centerpieces. I looked online and you can purchase clear glass votive candle holders for $1 each from the Dollar Store. Creating the mercury look on the exterior is easy and just requires some paint, a paint brush, and some rubbing alcohol. Again – it doesn’t take a degree in calculus to see that you could recoup this investment almost immediately! In fact, it was cheaper to buy the candles ourselves than it was to rent them.
- Spray Paint. I used a spray paint that was textured and looked like sand to paint several picture frames. Because this paint was textured, it was VERY difficult to paint evenly since it came out of the can in bursts rather than a fine mist. If only there was a bottled version of this type of paint … I looked high and low and only found the spray cans. By the end of the project I think I used one can per frame! Talk about waste. There must be a better way!
- DIY Water Bottle Labels. Think you are saving money by making your own personalized water bottle labels? Think again. The labels for this DIY cost more than the bottles of water! The person that offers a more cost-effective way of labeling will definitely have a large audience to sell to.
I could continue to ramble off other ideas that I came up with during our wedding planning process, but I’ll stop here. My point isn’t that our readers should rush to open one of these four businesses. These concepts are just illustrations that you can find inspiration for your new business in your daily life. Evaluate what you like to do and what activities you partake in on a regular basis. Then ask yourself where there is room for improvement or innovation. You’ll have your next great business idea before you know it!
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