How do entrepreneurs identify opportunities in Competitive Business World
Entrepreneurs are the ones who are attentive to the environment, constantly analyzing and scanning it, and when identifying an opportunity that can make a positive impact, immediately turn it into a venture. Opportunities are always there, it is the identifying ability of an entrepreneur that turns opportunities into business.
Entrepreneurs acquire knowledge, make social networks, and remain alert to business opportunities. They identify opportunities by looking into the market, analyzing the gap between needs and availability of the product or service in the market. Furthermore, understand the value of the product and service mainly focusing on providing solutions to certain problems. Entrepreneurs need to have strong analytical skills, critical thinking, strategic thinking, and problem-solving skills.
To find a business idea that could change the world, the first step is thinking locally. Many of you would ask what does that mean? It means to analyze the problems of your community, and understand what exactly your community needs? Or what problem you can solve and add value to the lives of the people. As you are also part of a community, therefore you can also analyze things that can make your work easy.
One of the most successful Entrepreneurs Steve Jobs who revolutionized the computer industry by creating personal computers aimed to provide machines smaller, cheaper, and easy to use for people. He prioritizes the community, everything else he puts behind him. He realized that cell phones don’t have many features, and he can build a better device to solve this problem. One of his famous quotes is ‘’ Stay hungry, Stay foolish, ‘’ encourage people to learn to keep growing. Phav Daroath is a young Cambodian Entrepreneur who develops a project named WaterSHED to provide a solution for clean water. Alexander Naydenov Bulgarian entrepreneur, provides a platform named ‘’ Where Ideas find Their Home, ‘’. He is a social entrepreneur who helps non-profit organizations and social initiatives. Another Entrepreneur Enrique Gomez-Junco provides a solution for Mexicans to optimize energy consumption and help minimize environmental issues. He is the CEO of Optima Energia.
Khalid Al Khudair is an entrepreneur from Iraq and founder of Glowork. The company solves the problems of women in finding jobs that have restrictive environments. All of the above-mentioned Entrepreneurs find an opportunity in the problems. They identified these problems and came up with a solution. Similarly, you will find numerous other examples of entrepreneurs who found their opportunity in analyzing the problems of the community they live in.
People wanted to hear the truth from those who had already been there, and have practical experience. That makes it more authentic and valid to understand the process of identification of opportunities. Now let’s hear from top entrepreneurs about their experience of finding opportunities.
Entrepreneurs experience in Identifying Opportunities
Sanjeev Bikhchandani is an Indian businessman who owns Info Edge a job portal and also co-founder of Ashoka University. Sharing his Experience on the TEDx Talk show’’ How to Identify a Business Opportunity’’ Sanjeev said, it all started with exposure at the university campus where he was volunteering. It was a job fair where different companies were participating to hunt students for jobs. He got his first idea from there and started his website. For the website, he wanted to hire an employee but he didn’t have money to pay so he offered 5 percent on the website to his brother which is now called Info Edge.
The founder of Temenos, a technology-based company in Switzerland that develops retail banking software George Koukis brought this company from a Swiss company. He said in an interview,
“I bought it for $948k and seven years later the company entered the stock market with CHF1.4 billion, currently CHF2.5 billion”,
In his TEDx talk show, he shared valuable tips for people who wanted to start their own business. He talks about the realities of starting a business. He said,
‘’All of them told me do not do it. You don’t know anything about technology, and you gonna fail. You are crazy, you are sick, it is impossible. ‘’
People will tell you that it’s hard, difficult and you are going to fail, therefore, never listen to the opinions of those who discourage you. Yes, indeed, business is full of risk, risk of being bankrupt, and risk of not having resources, and failure but it is also full of opportunities, experiences, and learning.
Let’s sum up the experiences of some Entrepreneurs and list ways to identify opportunities:
Six Simple Steps to Identify a Business Opportunity
- Find a problem in your community, and provide a solution for it
- Find opportunity in your personal experience
- Look for ideas within existing businesses and present new solutions to the existing problems.
- Experience through philanthropic work and volunteering
- Keep up with current events and avail new opportunities
- Read and Read and use google to find out ways
Now if you have understood how these entrepreneurs find an opportunity, let’s dig into how to turn these opportunities into business ventures.
Three simple Steps to find an opportunity and turn it into a business venture
For people who start a business at a small level and do not have resources and capacity, Nicolas Hanny, the co-founder of NIKIN is an inspiration and hope. He is one of the entrepreneurs that a lot of people can relate to.
He shared his experience which is the most valuable for those who are interested in starting their own business. Here are the three steps that he recommends will help you to turn your opportunity into business.
STEP 1: Don’t strive for Perfection
STEP 2: ASK for Help
STEP 3: Read the best Book in The world
Let’s get into a bit of detail about these three steps shared by Nicolas Hanny.
STEP 1: Don’t Strive for Perfection
He believes that there is no perfect idea. Do not wait for an idea and look for perfection. Most of the ideas are inspired from already existing ideas. You don’t need a great idea, it is all about implementation. Let’s look at a few examples
Facebook is one of the greatest examples of that, it wasn’t a new idea. Facebook got the idea from Myspace. It was the implementation and trying of innovative ideas that got Facebook to the place where it is today. Facebook implemented ideas, did innovations and kept updating the features.
Another example
How many of you know about Lyft? Many of you might not know Lyft but most people will know about UBER. Both of them are based on the same idea, Uber didn’t come up with a new idea. It’s the same idea as Lyft but the implementation, better understanding of customer’s needs and choices, and innovation made it famous all over the world.
If you are not inspired by the above examples, let’s look at another example.
Google- the best search engine today was not the first search engine. Many of you might not know that AltaVista was the search engine started in 1995 but it lost its ground to Google and was later purchased by Yahoo. Google implemented better strategies and enhanced algorithms. Now there is another search engine focusing on the current issue of climate Change ‘’ Ecosia’’ a search engine that plants trees.
It is a stereotype that entrepreneurs come with an idea that’s completely unknown and new. It shouldn’t be. Every idea has an inspiration behind it, they are connected. Therefore, if you have an idea that is inspired by other companies, do not think that it will not work. Rather analyze the existing products and services and add more value to the customers.
STEP 2; ASK for help
Ask for help, and you will be amazed to see how many people are ready to help. Do not think about what people will say, the worst thing they could say is ‘’no’’. That’s fine. Without asking for help, we don’t know if people can help or not.
In business, you might need someone’s office for a day, or it might be a small thing like sharing the contact of the relevant person. It doesn’t matter what it is, don’t be afraid to ask for what you need. People who go for crowdfunding also ask for money, if they didn’t create crowdfunding how they would know if people will help or not.
Nicolas shared his personal experience of asking friends to give him things he needed at the initial stage. For instance, his friend gave him his camera for product photography.
STEP 3: Read the best Book in the World
Nicolas believes that reading empowers entrepreneurs. Since they have to figure out everything by themselves. Initially, they do not have the resources to hire people to do things. Therefore, they learn to do it through reading.
According to him, Google is the best book in the world. Since you can find everything on google. You want to start a business, go and search how to start a business, and it will give you thousands of ways to do it.
And it is one of the best platforms for learners and entrepreneurs. Therefore, be smart and read everything that you believe would help you in your business.
A final thought on Finding Opportunity by Entrepreneurs
You might be the next Bill Gates, therefore always follow the above suggestions. Be a decision-maker, and implement your idea. There is no small or great idea, everything is about implementation. Listen to those who inspire you to start your own business, and not be afraid to take the risk. AS Michael Jordan said once,
‘’Don’t be afraid to fail
Be afraid not to try’’
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