You need an idea, it doesn't necessarily need to be a new idea. Often time people think you need a new idea, some great silver bullet that no one has discovered yet. Though great ideas can spur a great business, its not a requirement. Sometimes just taking a simple idea and performing your competition can be the key to success.

For example I know of a certain landscaping business that is cheap, fast, and generally does a good job at keeping my plants alive. When I hired them they came once a week with a crew and mowed my grass, cut the shrubs, maintained my sprinkler system, and pick up the garbage in the yard. They did great for the first few weeks, then I started noticing little annoyances, then things started getting missed. So I put in a call to ask them to take care of the problems that I was having. The man on the phone assured me the problem would be taken care of, it never happened. They did not meet my expectations and so I started to ask around for a better landscaping business. I was referred to a new business that cost a little more, however I felt it would be worth it to have my yard looking nice. The second business continued to do an excellent job and they received multiple referrals from me.

Running a successful business is about outperforming your competition, it doesn't matter what field you are in. Getting jobs is only part of the deal, performing your best every time is the key to beating your competition. It will get you referrals, it will get you respect, and it will insure you stay in business.

There are several things you need to consider when deciding what business to get into. A lot of it should depend on your personal strengths. What are you good at? If you're not sure what your good at then think about what do you enjoy doing? It will be much easier to get ahead of the competition in any field when you enjoy what you're doing. You will have a much steeper learning curve and you will do a much better job at performing the service than your competition if you're enjoying it.

Find a business you can enjoy doing and get started, then keep ahead of the competition by staying up to date on the happenings in your industry.