Saw this tweet from a @david_perell bot:

Formula for new business ideas: Take a boring experience, and make it exciting. Examples… Coffee: Starbucks, Airlines: Virgin Atlantic. Endless opportunities.

What’s fascinating about this idea is how ordinary it seems. Sure, change boring to exciting. Duh! Don’t need to be a genius to come up with that! But yes, boring experiences with products and services in our lives are amazing persistent and stubborn. If it was so clear and simple, why didn’t these services have changed by now?

✈️ Airlines: Other than Virgin, majority of airlines are still boring af. 

? Restaurants: Most eateries just serve food. You order, eat, pay and leave. Surely, the experience can be made more fun, without having to go Michelin star! 

? Taking a taxi, train or bus: We spend so much time in commute, you’d think some enterprising entrepreneur would have thought about this, but no. Taking transport of all kinds are mostly still bland, with nothing to do.

? Shopping: Pretty much the same as a restaurant. You enter, look around, pay and leave. A good shopping experience is usually defined by really helpful and pleasant service staff. Surely there’s so much more room for delightful experiences?

? Hotels: Likewise with restaurants and shopping.

? Government services: I get it, it’s taxpayers money. But it doesn’t have to necessarily cost a lot to make these essential services with millions of citizen users a bit more delightful to use.

I love how deceptively simple this heuristic is. Anytime you’re bored, look deeper. There’s a business opportunity to be had there.