The Eureka Moment. Every entrepreneur has one. It’s that moment when a light bulb goes on in your brain and the business idea you have been searching for suddenly stares you in the face. Some people spend years searching for a gap in the market, or the niche they can get to grips with, and unfortunately for many entrepreneurs their eureka moment is a false prodigy as they fail to move forward from the small idea to a functioning profitable business.
For us at 123Print UK, we love reading about an entrepreneur’s eureka moment. It inspires us to work harder to develop better merchandise, and to be more innovative with the products which are helping those very same entrepreneurs build their businesses. Below are 5 of our favourite Eureka Moments from spectacular businesses and we hope they inspire you to find your own eureka moment.
Spotify – Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon 
In an era when the music industry was suffering at the hands of online piracy and the common consumer was becoming ever more accustomed to free music, it was the creative genius of the duo Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon which offered a suitable alternative to satisfy both consumer and industry with Spotify. The Eureka moment for Spotify, as you may have guessed, came when the pair were listening to music. Whilst becoming increasingly infuriated with the usability of Daniels HTPC media player, and the music industry in general, one asked the other, “What if you had ITunes, but you had all the world’s music in it?” and Eureka! The world’s favourite online music streaming model was born.
Match.com – Gary Kremen
Whether making a new box office hit or a bestseller book, the theme of love has often been the Eureka moment for many businesses. For Gary Kremen, the founder and CEO of Match.com, finding love was the start of his. As a devoted user of the long discarded 900 number services, Gary began brainstorming how he could offer this service online and possibly use it to his advantage, as a way to connect with ladies looking for love. The serial entrepreneur soon became motivated by the profits which classified date ads were making on a weekly basis, and quickly turned his eureka moment into the thriving dating community we now know as Match.com. Can you find your eureka moment in love?
Trip Advisor – Steve Kaufer
From love to planning a trip abroad with a loved one, it’s surprising how many of the world’s most dominant digital brands were born through the concern or desire of one single person. For Steve Kaufer, the founder of TripAdvisor, his eureka moment came when he was planning a getaway with his wife to Mexico, on the recommendation of a local travel agency. At the time it was the height of success for shows like Holidays from Hell and Steve simply wanted to find a reliable, honest and realistic review of the resort he planned to book. He quickly became disillusioned by the recycled promotional material which his extensive online search results presented. All he wanted was a single place where he could get real, honest, first-hand information without the glossy PR. It was a result of this frustration that led Steve to the inspiration for Trip Advisor, a website regarded as a valuable, must stop source for anyone planning a trip or holiday, home or abroad.
ASOS – Quentin Griffiths and Nick Robertson
If anyone tries to say that watching TV is not productive and will never bring you success, then the founders of ASOS may have a point to prove them wrong! It is after all the cult television audiences of TV shows like Friends and Eastenders, which sparked the eureka moment for founders Quentin Griffiths and Nick Robertson back in 1999. The story goes that the pair read a stat which detailed how an American television network received over 4000 calls, enquiring about where people could buy a standard lamp, after it appeared in an episode of Friends. Over time, the ASOS brand and ecommerce shop has developed and changed, but it was this stat that convinced the pair to try and capture this powerful movement that inspired TV audiences to shop for what they had ‘seen on screen’, and thus the ASOS brand – As Seen On Screen – which we now know and love was born. Good old Joey!
MyMoneySupermarket – Simon Nixon 
From a University drop out, to finding a job as a mortgage salesman, to setting up the ground work for MyMoneySupermarket, the story of how Simon Nixon went from unemployed and living with his parents, to a multi-millionaire will be inspiring for all. Simon’s story starts back on the day he arrived back from university, when his parents gave him their local paper to find a job. With a history in finance it wasn’t long before Simon was working on a commission only basis selling mortgages, and was soon rising through the ranks to the top of his office, with his keen sense for research and a sharp nous for financial information giving him the advantage. Within a few years he was being asked to report for over 5 other mortgage offices and he quickly realised there was a huge gap of information, for financial advisers to find the best mortgages for their customers, and so he decided to set up the ‘Brokers Update’ magazine. Within 3 months it was making more money than his mortgage arrangements! This inspired him to partner up with software engineer Duncan Cameron, taking his magazine into the online world and thus after many years of hard work the financial price comparison site MyMoneySuperMarket was born.
Have you had a eureka moment you’d like to share? Contact us in the comments below, we would love to help share your story!