Entrepreneur Plus - Short White
For Subscribers

Tried and True Business IdeasTurn a classic business idea into your next big moneymaker.

ByNichole L. Torres

Opinions expressed by Entrepreneur contributors are their own.

There's a simple reason some businesses tend to always do well. People love food and convenience, so burger joints and pizza delivery will always be in style. There's always a market for back-to-school products and Christmas tree decorations, too, so retailers have a tried-and-true formula for those seasons. And when it comes to college guys, it's a good bet that they'll always love a good swimsuit calendar.

That's exactly what entrepreneurs Ben Leis and David Freedman were banking on. The two childhood friends came up with a concierge business for sports professionals while Leis was at the University of Miami and Freedman was at Arizona State University in Tempe, but during the planning phase, they decided the business would be too much to handle. Looking for a simpler idea, the pair holed up in Freedman's house, brainstormed and landed on the idea of a swimsuit calendar featuring the girls next door: Arizona State University students. Eight weeks later, they'd formed StudentBody Marketing and already had the Tempe12 calendar out. "It was extremely fast," says Leis. "Eight months later, we had our second calendar out."

That type of immediate recognition is one of the benefits of a tried-and-true business idea--there's no need to explain the concept to potential customers, as people are generally pretty familiar with these classic ideas. "Because they're tried and true, a market for that type of product or solution has been demonstrated somewhere along the line," says Sherry Hoskinson, director of the McGuire Entrepreneurship Program in the Eller College of Management at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "It might be that the original product or service wasn't timely. And by coming along and assessing the new needs or the new [demographic, an entrepreneur is] perking it up to meet a newly validated need." The benefits of such an approach are many: Since you're learning from past incarnations, you can likely avoid common missteps, and your initial investments tend to be lower than a start-from-scratch type of business.

This is a subscriber-only article.

For 48 hours only, join Entrepreneur+andsave 33%during our flash sale. Use codeFLASH33.

Related Topics

领导

This 27-Year-Old Harvard Dropout Started a Hedge Fund Out of a Garage — Now She Manages Nearly $1 Billion in Assets

Eva Shang, who met co-founder and fellow Harvard undergraduate Christian Haigh at a club on campus, admits it's "very unusual for college students to start a hedge fund."

Business News

College Student's Tragic Death Sparks Legal Battle as Parents Sue Panera Over High-Caffeine 'Charged Lemonade'

A 21-year-old college student, Sarah Katz, purchased Panera Bread's Charged Lemonade and passed away hours later after going into cardiac arrest.

Business News

Barbara Corcoran's 3 Best Tips for Buying a Home in the Current Housing Market

如果你希望to buy a home, the real estate mogul offered some sage advice on Instagram.

Business News

Reddit Co-Founder Alexis Ohanian Says the 'Surfer Mindset' Is the 'Right' Approach in Business and in Life. Here's Why.

The Reddit co-founder recently spoke to students at his alma mater, the University of Virginia.

Growing a Business

Prepare For This Seismic Shift in Employee Expectations — Or Say Goodbye to Your Top Talent.

If you are a business leader failing to account for this fundamental transformation in worker attitudes, prepare for a rude awakening.