In 1997 my good friend Anton Visser and I were sales reps for Pyxis, a $500 million division of Cardinal Health. We sold point-of-use pharmaceutical and medical supply systems to small hospitals throughout the US.

While traveling on business trips we would spend nights in hotel rooms brainstorming new business ideas. It wasn’t long before we realized that we had a great idea right under our nose. Why not take what we were already selling, something we were already experts in and find a new, untapped market to expand into?

Within one year we had obtained a worldwide license to market automated point-of-use systems to the industrial supply and manufacturing industry, markets that Pyxis was not interested in approaching. We established DispenseSource (now Nexiant www.nexiant.com ) in 1999 and quickly raised over $10 million from venture capitalists.

Now, 8 years later, Anton is using the entrepreneurial model that has worked well for him once before. He’s finding yet another market for the technology that he knows so well. In 2008 Anton launched v-Supply (www.vsupply.com ) which brings the proven point-of use inventory systems of  Pyxis and Nexiant to the Dental industry.

Look around–What are you doing today in your current job or in your current business that can be introduced to a new market? Is there a software or service that you’ve been impressed with that might be applicable in another market or introduced to a new clientele?

Be aware that most of the great new businesses are not really that new at all–they’re usually spin-offs of something already proven.

Keep that in mind. You’re next great entrepreneurial idea might be closer than you think.