You Don’t Need a New Idea to Start a Business

What’s the Latest Development?

Serial entrepreneur Gurbaksh Chahal knows how to start a business and says having a new idea is not essential to a new company’s success. After dropping out of school, Chahal worked to build an online advertising business which he later sold for $40 million. He sold his next business, BlueLithium, for $300 million. Currently, he is working on RadiumOne, a social-network-driven advertising initiative. Advertising is an old business and Chahal says one of the surefire ways to be taken over as a business is to have a completely new idea. 

What’s the Big Idea?

Chahal points to companies like Kodak and Blackberry which have recently fallen on hard times despite being revolutionaries in the respective fields. Kodak failed to re-imagine itself in the digital age, failing as a photography company despite having practically invented the industry. Blackberry, too, has seen itself eclipsed by the iPhone despite have pioneered the smartphone industry while Apple was still just making personal computers. Sometimes, says Chahal, believing that you can do something better than someone else is enough for success.

Photo credit: shutterstock.com