Use these 15 sectors to find your next business idea

With entries coming in for Innovate Taranaki (and only two weeks remaining!), it’s wonderful seeing the massive variety of budding Taranaki business ideas.

If you’re looking to enter Innovate Taranaki or would generally like to launch a business, but you haven’t quite nailed down your business idea, zooming out by looking at the 15 sectors of business can help spark ideas.

You might find an idea that fits nicely into one of these sectors. This can work wonderfully if you have lots of experience in your chosen sector. However, often you can find innovative niches and gaps in the market where two sectors meet.

For example, companies like Uber and Airbnb found incredible disruption opportunities through combining IT with the Transportation and Hospitality sectors respectively. Our own Learner Me found a unique way of solving the problem of a shortage of IT professionals by using IT to innovate in the education sector. Taranaki’s Hiringa Energy has sparked the growth of New Zealand's hydrogen economy by finding connecting nodes from the Energy sector into the Transport, Manufacturing and Agricultural sectors.

So, what innovative connections between sectors could your business idea pioneer?

Another more Taranaki-centric way of looking for a business idea is to consider the sectors that were identified in Taranaki’s 2050 Roadmap. These are:

· Arts

· Infrastructure and Transport

· Health and Well-being

· Tourism

· Energy

· Food and Fibre

· Māori Economy

What interesting combinations or intersection points between sectors could come from this list?

There’s inspiration all around us. Let your creative juices loose.

Mā te huruhuru te manu ka rere.

Adorn the bird with feathers so that it may fly.

Get your ideas in for Innovate Taranaki. Two weeks to go!