When I mention that I co-founded and sold Roomhints App, people will ask,

“How did you come up with the idea?”

Here’s the truth. It’s easy to find business ideas if you know how to look for them, but what’s hard and more important to find is your why.

In 2018, I sold Roomhints App and kept the media business that was making money from advertising. The sale allowed me the freedom to live out my dream of waking up to adventurous days filled with skiing, climbing, travelling, painting, and making jewelry!

About six months in, I was binge watching Travellers and the OA on Netflix till 3am, and snoozing until 10am. Reality set in, this was not the dream life I thought it would be, I was utterly bored, frustrated, and unfulfilled.

I started exploring how I could feel fulfilled again. My entrepreneurial journey kicked off at the age of eight selling earrings and buttons at holiday markets. I pulled up my Apple Note labeled “ Business Ideas” with over 1000+ ideas.
Usually when I read my business ideas, my mind races with excitement. I start entering domain names into domainr.com. Think about how would work? Who is the customer? What does the first iteration look like?

This time when reading my “Business Ideas,” I had no excitement and closed the note within a minute.

I mentioned my dilemma to an entrepreneur friend and she sent me Simon Sinek’s book, “Start with Why.” Before reading the book, I knew I needed to define my ‘why’ to align my heart and head around my next project!

What Does it Mean to Find Your Why?

To me finding my why meant finding my mission statement. The why is a deeper mission within me, it’s my guidance, and motivating force.

For example, Sara Blakely the founder of Spanx realized that her why is to elevate women. She did this with Spanx by elevating a woman’s appearances/confidence. Today Sarah has gone on to build a fund to support female entrepreneurs and a foundation.

The founder of Whole Foods, John Mackay, mentions in an interview with Adam Grant. “We were always mission-driven. Entrepreneurs tend to be very driven people, and they tend to be pursuing a kind of dream. And so, a lot of times they have this higher purpose. They haven’t yet made it conscious. They haven’t made it explicit, but that doesn’t mean they’re still not chasing after it. Whole Foods’ higher purpose before we articulated it, back then, was to sell healthy food to people. Sell natural and organic foods, healthy foods to people.”

Journey to Finding my Why?

With that I went on a search to find my why. I knew that my why was right in front of me, however, it was wearing an invisible robe.

Here are three exercises that helped me define my why.

1. Peter Theil is famous for asking “what important truth do very few people agree with you on?”
Each morning I would answer this question in the style of automatic writing or morning pages. First thing in the morning, before looking at my phone, I let my hand uncontrollably write the answers.

2. What’s my vision for the future? This question helped me to see what solutions I am passionate about bringing to the world.

3. What was I passionate about? I went back and looked at every project that I worked on and asked myself why did I work on that project?

Why did I work on Roomhints Mobile App?

We launched the first version of Roomhints Mobile app in 2014. Within 24 hours the app got 30,000 downloads but the app constantly crashed!! My co-founder and I built the app in a week to test the market. It was a very minimum viable product.

The traffic and users were exciting and led us to rebuild the app to actually work.
At the beginning my why was to build a technology startup to help people to furnish their home. Looking back today, I realize my why was bigger than helping people with furniture.

My “why” was to help people.

One, I was passionate about helping artists to get exposure for their products. Two, we analyzed over 1 million room photos on Roomhints App and saw the positive changes after updating their space. This was exciting.
Today, my why is empowering people by connecting them to support, community, and joy. I allow it to evolve and expand as I do.

In 2019, I started advising passionate entrepreneurs and built a community for founders. In 2020, I founded Bow to the Bee, a jewelry company and community that donates proceeds to support the bees. Today, the community has over 10,000+ like-minded bee lovers who are planting pollinator friendly yards. Lastly, Roomhints.com, connects artists, designers, and products to customers .

Conclusion

So, how do you get good business ideas? Define your why and use it as a framework to decipher whether a business idea is right for you. Or if the business you are looking to buy, or the company you are looking to join is a good fit. Does the idea or business align with your why?