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How Career-Changers with an Entrepreneurial Spark Literally Dream Up Their Winning Business Ideas

Many people dream of starting their own home-based business or small company, but finding the right product or service is often challenging. Some budding entrepreneurs solve the problem by actually dreaming up successful ideas in their sleep," says Dee Adams, author of a new guide entitled Finding Your Niche: Discover a Profitable Idea for a Business at Home or Elsewhere. For free book excerpts, visit

Consider: In the early 1900's, the first African-American woman to become a millionaire, according to the Guinness Book of World Records, Madame C.J. Walker, stated that she started her company with a formula for a hair care product that came to her in a vivid dream. And take the Glazed Honey Ham Company's, eventual owner, Harry Hoenselaar. He invented a superior meat slicing machine and patented it in the 1940's. The design was based on detailed images that Hoenselaar saw while he slept.

"At first glance, these examples may seem mysterious, but there is a logical explanation. Several of Madame Walker's family members were barbers, so the industry was not foreign. And before she started her manufacturing concern, Walker sold hair care products for another company. A year later, she started experimenting with her own formulas. Walker reportedly had problems with hair loss, and that would have increased her motivation to find a better product. Hoenselaar, a salesman for a meat company, skilled at slicing meat, frequently carved hams off bones for customers because it was a difficult task for them to execute," says Adams.

Adams points out that Walker and Hoenselaar, confronted with specific and persistent obstacles in their daily working lives, discovered solutions while in a highly relaxed state.

In controlled studies, researchers analyzed over 10,000 dreams from hundreds of people and found that the content often reflects their daily concerns. Most individuals don't remember their dreams, but some people can, especially if the dreams are vivid, and the dreamer is skilled at recalling visual details in other situations while awake, according to psychology textbook co-authors Don and Sandra Hockenberry.

"Walker and Hoenselaar used the information they dreamt up to become successful in business. Hoenselaar's company is still in existence, and Walker's company survived well into the twentieth century. There are other cases of modern-day entrepreneurs who have started ventures based on specific dreams, but waiting for that kind of inspirationis impractical for most people interested in finding a business that they can start. Each person has to create their own game plan in order to uncover the right idea; a map geared to their personal circumstances," says Adams.

Finding Your Niche takes a practical, entertaining, and offbeat look at how entrepreneurs uncover ideas and how to avoid the common mistakes made when choosing with a startup.

Adams has written and published business literature on the issue for more than 70 university, community college, and public libraries across the country.

Visit her blog:

Finding Your Niche, 7.5 x 9.25, 148 pages with index ISBN 978-0-9831539-0-0 Adobe Digital EBook, 118 pages, hyperlinking, word search function and printing.ISBN: 978-0-615-19706-7                

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Dee AdamsNiche Creativity1-888-813-2603Email Information