This article has been taken from Slingshot and modified a bit. Slingshot is a handy step-by-step guide that will help you get your business raging.

Don't have a business idea yet? This article should help.

What do you like doing?

Heaps of great businesses have been started by people who were just doing what they wanted. For example, Mrs Fields was started by- you guessed it- Mrs Fields, who loved baking cookies. Rip Curl was founded by two dedicated surfers who opened their own surf store (Doug Warbrick and Brian Singer). The movie Pirates of Silicon Valley depicts how Apple was started by one guy who was obsessed with building gadgets (Steve Wozniak) and another guy who was obsessed with changing the world (Steve Jobs).

What are you good at? Write down the following:

• Your skills
• Your talents
• Your hobbies
• Your passion
• What do other people think you're good at? Ask them.
• What can you do that you know you are brilliant at, that you KNOW you can kick butt at every time.
• What sorts of tasks get you completely excited?
• If you could own any business, what would it be?
• What do you think about most of the time?
• Could you provide something that certain people would find awesome?
• Is there anyone that you could combine skills with?
• Is there anything that does not scare you like it does other people?

Could any of your answers be the basis of a business?

Had any problems lately?
Business is about providing a solution to a problem- alleviating a customer's pain. If a person has a problem, and you have a great solution, chances are they'll buy it. Here is a metaphor: A guy is falling out of a plane. You offer to sell him a parachute. Of course he is going to buy it. You want customers who are falling out of planes- meaning customers with a big problem that you are going to solve for them.

Write down the following:

• What are some problems you have? Do other people have these problems? Look at your answers from above. Could you fix any of these problems with any of your skills etc?
• Did something cost you too much recently? Could you provide a better solution to other people?
• Is there anything that you really want to see changed?
• Have you done something recently that was more difficult than it had to be? Could you make it easy for other people?
• Has someone sold you a below-par product or service that you think you could do better?
• Do people you know have any problems that you could solve? Ask them the questions above. Have you heard any complaints lately?

Find your unique opportunities
Sometimes you are sitting on a great opportunity without even realizing it. For example, if you were a maths genius in school and you like teaching, you could probably be a tutor, right? If you live next door to a fast food complex and you own a fuel-economic car, surely you could deliver fast food to people's houses until late, and surely you would be able to deliver it faster and cheaper than anyone else because you don't have to drive to the fast food complex from your house first and you don't use much fuel. If you are extremely patient and can handle being laughed at, you could stand still for hours at parties in a British Guard's costume and you would probably make a killing.
Do you have access to something that only you or few other people have access to? Look for things that only you or few other people can do. There is a good chance there is a business there. In his book Outliers, Malcom Gladwell explains that when people first started to take computers seriously, Bill Gates already had over 10,000 hours of programming experience under his belt. Bill explains "I had better exposure to software development at a young age than I think anyone did in that period of time…"

Other places to find ideas
You can see the Shopfront Forums for a list of ideas that people have suggested. Entrepreneur.com has a list of 970 businesses you can start today.

You don't need a great idea to start a great business. Many of the greatest businesses started of with a very simple, obvious idea. Others started off with no idea at all! Built to Last explains how the founders of Hewlett Packard started the company with no clue as to what they would sell - they just wanted to start a company!

If you still don't have an idea, think it over for a while. It's often hard to think on the spot. Remember, you can start even the tiniest business on Shopfront for free. Try everything you can, and you will increase your chances of finding your ideal business. There is no such thing as business failure on shopfront.com- only testing business ideas. One thing leads to another. If you start a business, you might find that it leads to another for reasons you could never have imagined. The main thing is just getting started. If you have an idea, try it. Even if it seems tiny or ridiculous. History has shown that "ridiculous" ideas can be VERY successful.

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For more on business ideas, see Slingshot.