BRAIN FREEZE: How to unlock a business idea How to come up with a business idea. TAKE heart, before he came up with the electric light bulb, Thomas Edison invented the concrete piano. Most innovations never see the light of day. It has never been so true as now, when millions of would-be web entrepreneurs around the world beaver away nightly in their bedrooms with dreams of emulating Mark Zuckerberg's light bulb moment with Facebook. Your net invention may seem too small, too boring or complicated to fly, but don't lose heart. Three Australian successful internet entrepreneurs - all of whom started off small and weathered multiple highs and lows on the road to prosperity - have encouraging tips for web ascendancy. Neil Ackland, CEO, The Sound Alliance Neil Ackland, CEO of web music business The Sound Alliance, launched dance music community inthemix with Libby Clark and Andre Lackmann out of a spare bedroom in Lackmann's house in inner-city Sydney in 2000. The Sound Alliance runs sites for rock music fans and the gay community, as well as operating a global consulting company and ticketing business. Ackland was a 24-year-old conference and event producer when he began following his passion for music. "Digital media was really starting to explode," he said. It wasn't really a very serious enterprise, just something we did for fun on weekends. But there came a point if we were going to move forward we would have to give up our day jobs. It was probably a crazy risk, but in our early to mid-twenties and we didn't have a lot to lose. They launched music promotions with prize offers and gained a massive response. There was a reader in the office and we would refresh it every half an hour, and there were another 20 to 30 people joining online. There was no safety blanket. It was more about passion than a business-based approach. Ned Dwyer, founder, Tweaky.com Onetime DJ, Ned Dwyer, 29, left his day job at digital agency Native Digital to launch Tweaky.com last year with 25-year-old former mining engineer, Pete Murray. Tweaky was inspired by website customisation businesses which have had to compete with low cost online operators, hand-picking the optimum web developer for the job to avoid bidding wars. One of Dwyer's early successes was encouraging people to send a tweet in return for winning a single by Vanessa Amorosi. "The idea was no-one got the single until we had 10,000 tweets and created a trading topic on Twitter," Dwyer said. Dwyer worked for almost a year of Tuesday nights and all-day Saturdays to establish Tweaky, and plans to move on in three to five years to new ideas. "I have a list as long as my arm," he said, "it doesn't have to be a big idea to make a difference in people's lives and earn real paying points. Think of Facebook. It started in a US college. Janine Garrett, founder and CEO of charmHealth The medical fraternity wasn't quite in the stone tablet era before Janine Garrett, founder and CEO of charmHealth, came along, but it was entrenched in pen and paper. In 2001 Garrett, a pharmacist, was frustrated by the manual labour and room for error involved in patient cancer care. Pharmacists hand-typed pill bottle labels, doctors and nurses wrote patient records and the information was lost or mis-prescribed. Garrett studied a Master's degree in IT and began writing computer software programs for patient care. "I created a protocol for chemotherapy, prescription of drugs, for applications such as radiology and pathology, for every treatment that needed to occur," Garrett said. Now the de facto standard for online oncology care software and used by 45 Australian hospitals, charmHealth has 47 employees and in October will go live and international in Canada, the UK and New Zealand with a next generation version which will make the application portable, visual and state-of-the art. "Doctors will now be able to keep up with referrals and patient files on the move via their ipads," Garrett said, "we will now be individually configuring our software to meet each client's needs." Ten tips for success as a web entrepreneur Get out and meet people, attend industry conferences and read up on innovations in web technology - Neil Ackland, The Sound Alliance Hook into support networks and start-up advice websites and make friends with the start-up community. People are very open and friendly and willing to help - Neil Ackland, The Sound Alliance Talk about your idea and let it evolve. Don't think confidentiality is everything. There may be ten reasons it won't work. Execution of the idea is more valuable than the idea itself - Neil Ackland, The Sound Alliance/ Ned Dwyer, Tweaky Once you get going, get used to living as an entrepreneur. Balancing your personal life is hard, but sacrifices must be made. The buck stops with you - Neil Ackland, The Sound Alliance Put together a small website, just a landing page, that displays your concept and captures the email addresses of interested people. See what their feedback is about your idea - Ned Dwyer, Tweaky Once you have your idea out there and it generates a response, find web developers to help you grow your idea - Ned Dwyer, Tweaky Don't get swamped by the notion that you have to have really big ideas. Your small idea might be bigger than you think and, given the size of the market, may fulfill the needs of any number of customers out there on the web - Ned Dwyer, Tweaky Keep abreast of the technology world. Once you are established you need system architects and technology experts - Janine Garrett, charmHealth Believe in yourself and have people that believe in you. Keep motivated and you will survive the ups and downs - Janine Garrett, charmHealth There will be overlap between what you are currently doing and what your dream is. If you can take time off to pursue your idea, great. If you can't, you will have to do two or more things at the same time, but persist - Janine Garrett, charmHealth