Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about why 99% of entrepreneurs fail. But before you have the potential to be a failed entrepreneur, you need an idea. And many aspiring entrepreneurs don't know where to start.

Why are good ideas so hard to come by? Because most people try to think of them in either the wrong venue, or from the wrong-perspective. You need to stop thinking of yourself as an entrepreneur when you're thinking of an idea. You need to experience life as the world's victim, experiencing the flaws of the human life, and figuring out ways to improve on it.

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How can I be the person with billions of great business ideas?

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1) You're born with the ability to see the world in an abstract way, and can immediately come up with ideas on how to rid the world of its problems. You look at the world around you, and ideas are popping out as fast as babies from teenage girls. In other words, you're lucky.

2) And then there's everyone else who can't think of any good ideas. For the other 99% of the entrepreneurs in the world, including me, you struggle in the pursuit for ideas. You either need to retrain to be an idea person, or steal an idea from someone else. Or do both. So how did I do it? How did I go from having no ideas for a business/nonprofit to having more ideas than I could possibly work on? I followed the following "idea life-cycle":

It isn't simple, but I'm going to suggest that you change your perspective on the world in one select way: It's as retarded as it gets, but be a picky bitch who can identify everything wrong in the world, and not be scared to share it with others. Everyday, you experience minor inconveniences in your life that are waiting to get solved. But after learning to become "mature adults," you've conditioned yourself to be happy with what you have, leaving the flaws in life untouched.

If you want to expose yourself to more ideas, you need to train yourself, and in every obscure way possible. Don't settle for anything that you're not content with. Experience the world for what it is, and be absolutely freaking honest with your feelings and frustrations in life, and come up with ways to fix them. Let's take one "simple" exercise that I remember doing in elementary school, and analyze it. Here was the thought process of my 6 year old mind:

I'd go to a restaurant with my Daddy. The wait is 15 minutes long and I hate waiting. Why can't I order my food NOW, and have it ready for me when a table is ready? Why do I have to wait on a line before I can even order? Why is it annoying to flip each page in the menu? What have my friends tried and liked? Why do waiters take so long to come take my order when I know what I want to order? Why is the portion so massive... couldn't they give me something I could finish? Why does it take so long to pay? ... And Daddy, why are you staring at the waitress?

I could go on and on with this story for pages, describing everything sucky about the way restaurants work. As you could probably assume, I was a very picky, impatient (and curious) child. I'd often share these thoughts with my parents, and they'd tell me to shut up and be appreciative with what I have. Fortunate for them, I've since become a jolly human being.

But unfortunately, I've lost this incredible ability! Think about the possibilities -- If you and I were able to experience the world like 6 year old Jessica Mah, then we'd have hundreds of potential business ideas each day. Sure, you'd probably be a life hater and that lonely kid on the playground who didn't have any friends. (which I was) - but at least you'd have lots of ideas, and perhaps even one fantastic idea for a company you could start.

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Train yourself to be a child who sees more bad than good in the world.

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If you fit into the second category of entrepreneurs that I listed above, (not being born an idea-person) then it's imperative that you train yourself to be the snobby 6 year old girl who has no problem complaining about the flaws in this world, then asking her daddy to fix them. For every flaw you see in this world, write it down in a journal. Be as general as possible. For example, based on my thought-process in a restaurant, I'd be able to come up with these ideas:

- Waiting on lines sucks - Waiting for servers sucks - Having people not know your preferences sucks - Comparing dozens of options with each other sucks - Life in general sucks

Now bring those general ideas back home with you, and get out of your 6 year old la-la land. Start thinking of ways the world sucks in all of those above ways, and ways to fix them. I hated waiting to get seated at a restaurant, so how can I improve that? Since the problem was so general, ("waiting on lines sucks") how could I apply this to waiting for anything in life? This simple example applies to waiting at theme parks, airports, traffic, waiting on new mail, and I'm sure dozens of other things that are totally not worth waiting on.

And for each of those ideas, we can break it down further into dozens of potential solutions. The airport example is being fixed in a lot of great ways that you can see: Online check-in and the Clear Pass, just to name a few. Commercial flight has been around for decades, yet nobody has thought of the above ideas until just a few years ago. This suggests that fantastic ideas are all around you, just waiting to get found.

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So to recap on the lifecycle of finding ideas

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As they say, the best ideas come from entrepreneurs who are fixing a problem that they saw in the world; not from any profit incentive or selfish motive. And there's no better way to do this than to see as many flaws in the world possible. Think of as many ways that life sucks. Every context you're in provides new opportunity to think of ways to improve on the world. Most of the ideas you come up with will suck, but many will hold great opportunity if you don't dismiss them so fast.
Then, apply these flaws to everything else in life. I'm serious -- keep a journal with all of the flaws in the world. Then in the bathtub, start brainstorming creative solutions to those problems. When you have a list of problems to solve, you have a framework from which you can think of brilliant business ideas.

With that said, go experience the world starting now, and be honest with your true feelings on why your life sucks. (even if it doesn't.) Then, transfer those ideas into entrepreneurial concepts. As a good idea-person, you're capable of finding every minuscule flaw in human life. Just try not to bring this to the business... and especially not to the bedroom.

Isn't it frustrating when you do something "wrong" and a random person tells you that you can't do it because it's against the company/school/organization's rules? This can be in reference to virtually anything -- a hotel employee or restaurant waitress tells you that you're not allowed to do something because it's against company policy. The issue being that this so called employee has no clue why the rules exist in the first place! If your company has rules in place, make sure that employees know why they exist. Make sure your employees can offer good explanations for why they exist and reasonable alternatives around them. Real life example:

1) As I write this blog post, I'm in Boston. As I was checking into my hotel, I noticed a hotel customer and hotel employee arguing over something. The hotel customer was clearly a tourist and had brought in a cooler box, when the employee stopped him. Apparently, cooler boxes weren't allowed into the hotel. What? Why? Of course, the hotel employee didn't know why. He responded by saying, "it's just against hotel policy." Now why isn't this explanation good enough? Because the customer gets even MORE aggravated. He's thinking what to do with this cooler box he just bought. What does he do with the many drinks inside? The proper response would be for the hotel employee to say something among the lines of, "You can’t bring the cooler box inside because it's against state law, but I'd be happy to hold onto your cooler box until the end of your stay." Except how many employees are trained to do this?

2) Or another example I've dealt with throughout my childhood: Teachers asserting authority by punishing kids for rules that haven't a reason to exist: I was sitting on my friend's lap when a random school aid told me not to. I got off her lap and asked the school aid why I wasn't allowed to sit on her lap. Of course, being that I'm Jessica Mah, I get accused of being an arrogant teenage brat because I'm curious enough to ask about the reasons for rules existing. Next thing I knew, I was being threatened detention and a trip to the principals office. Had it ever occurred to the school aid that it was a stupid rule that should be changed? Probably not -- it makes them feel good about themselves to assert their authority over me. In an ideal world, the school aid would tell me why I can't sit on the persons lap. If the school aid doesn't have an answer, she would tell the school principal that the rule was meaningless, and that it be removed.

The bottom line: If your customer does something that's "against the rules," be prepared to give them a good reason as to why the rules exist, and promptly propose a suitable alternative. If no alternative exists, make one, even if it isn't your fault. If my flight from New York to San Francisco is delayed, I don't care that your plane broke down and I don't care what your reimbursement policies are. I want a suitable alternative or reimbursement. Make sure your employees know precisely how to react in these "unique" situations, and what they are authorized to offer as alternatives. Better yet, tell your employees that they can do whatever they would like in order to please the customer. If customer service is your number one priority and you give employees full authorization to do whatever they want to meet that mantra, your customers will be satisfied even when they can't do something or if you're not allowed to let them do something. I promise!

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore at early collegeBard College at Simon's Rock.

She loves chatting with fellow students, readers, and entrepreneurs, so don't hesitate to email her or message her on AIM! Feel free to subscribe to her blog or stalk her twitter.

I left the South by Southwest Conference today thinking about how some of the best companies we know create products make life easier for those who could afford this luxury. A few quick examples: Apple, Rackspace, and NetJets. They're each companies valued in the billions, and that all comes down to their basic philosophy: make life less stressful. The big question is would you like to solve the stressful problems of the rich and famous or would you rather provide tools to a greater number of "cheap" clientele?

Apple: They've always competed against major players, but they're so popular because they make things easier and reduce stress. Macs don’t get viruses. PCs do. Last time I checked, Macs cost a million times more than PCs and with good reason.

Rackspace: Hosting frequently goes down. When you're guaranteed nearly perfect uptime, the customer's stress goes away. Sure, Rackspace has had their fair share of problems, but they still have a reputation for reducing the stress of companies and people who need 100% website uptime. They charge around 500% more than the average dedicated server provider for this assurance. While they cost a lot, it's probably more worthwhile than running your own datacenter operations.

NetJets: Flying is stressful. As you've probably seen, I hate flying commercial! NetJets reduces the stress of having to own your own jet by offering fractional jet ownership. They get you where you need to go without the stress of going through security or waiting in the airport. They cost around $500,000 to own 1/16th of a jet, which gives about 50 hours of flight time per year. I see the company as being similar to Rackspace because both cost a lot, but they give you grade A assurance for a fraction the price of owning your own jet. Not too bad if you ask me. Clients include Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Tiger Woods, and my family. (haha, I wish)

I guess there's one major similarity among the above companies: they took a while to get to where they are now and spent millions to build their products as such. You can reduce stress at a much lower level and still make millions. Take for example Craigslist. It reduces the stress of having to go apartment hunting. eBay reduces the stress of buyers who can't find a product anywhere else. Simpler companies work too.

It needs to be understood that you don't necessarily have to start a company that "reduces stress" for the wealthy. As I've mentioned before, you have two types of companies: Companies that have mass usage and companies that go on the direct sale model. Rackspace has to manually sell its services, customer by customer. Facebook, on the other hand, has an automatic signup form. The company has very little two way interaction with its users. It seems as if "mass usage" companies can throw their products into the world without spending as much time and money. The direct sale companies require a much greater investment, but often yield much greater returns. This isn't always the case. Restaurants live by a direct sale model, but they don't prevent stress for the rich and powerful. There's a distinct difference. The best direct sale companies target the wealthy and only the wealthy.

I'll write a more thorough article on the different type of companies, what each type requires, and how to choose between the different types. In a nutshell, if you have very little time and money, it probably makes sense to throw a product out in the public under the "mass usage" model. If you have the funds (and obvious smarts,) make life easier for the rich and famous and you'll find yourself sitting on a pile of cash.

Jessica Mah is a 17 year old entrepreneur, blogger, and sophomore in college. She's currently the founder of a startup, managing editor at Startupism.com, and Jessicamah.com. In her free time, she enjoys the prospect of being an underage angel investor while partying like a rock star. (and traveling to random cities and checking into hotels while being underage)