Many scholars argue that from a cognitive perspective the creative act of opportunity recognition can be conceptualized as a transformation process of bringing together previously unrelated knowledge in order to create a new means-ends framework. Along these lines, the present paper empirically investigates whether the basic cognitive process of category combination and reorganisation can help to explain individual differences in conceiving business ideas. An empirical test on 114 business students supports the proposition that individuals with a higher ability of category combination and reorganisation conceive more original and more promising business ideas in a given situation. The paper also comments on possible applications in entrepreneurship education and potential future research arising from the fact that category combination and reorganisation is already a well-established cognitive concept in general psychology.