Business Ideas
Richard Branson, billionaire founder of Virgin Records and Virgin Atlantic Airlines, may be better known for his efforts to circle the globe in a hot-air balloon than for his business successes. He suggests that "Being an adventurer and an entrepreneur are similar? You're willing to go where most people won't dare."
But it is still generally accepted that entrepreneurs are skillful at knowing which risks are worth taking. "In everything I do, I examine the downside, the danger, what can go wrong," says Branson. When he started his airline, he only bought one plane, with an agreement with Boeing to take that back "if things didn't work out."
Are there any safeguards against failure? No! Even the best conceived and implemented business ventures can become market experiments that simply did not work. Our goal here is to follow a planning process that can minimize risk. That is the best that we can do, and the degree to which we can enhance our confidence about a venture must enter into any decision about its pursuit.
The best approach requires patience, and to a commitment to preparation well in advance of start-up. This could be a long-range process of getting to better understand one's strengths, weaknesses, and limitations, and setting about filling knowledge and experience gaps. During this period, we should constantly generate ideas with the potential of becoming real business opportunities.
Where do business ideas come from? The best source is what you know. Often, ideas come from work experience or from personal interests, such as hobbies; other ideas can come from friends and relatives, and our educational background. Ideas may be easy enough to generate, but an idea is not necessarily an opportunity! Building a "better mousetrap" does not insure success; other factors include fit, timing, and resources.
Jeff Timmons, in his book New Venture Creation, suggests that "An opportunity is attractive, durable, and timely and is anchored in a product or service that creates or adds value for its buyer or end user. Opportunities are created because there are changing circumstances, inconsistencies, chaos, lags, or leads, information gaps, and a variety of other vacuums, and because there are entrepreneurs who can recognize and seize them."
The process of creating or seizing an opportunity is less the result of a deliberate search than it is a mindset of maintaining a form of vigilance that is sensitized to business opportunity. Successful entrepreneurs recognize an opportunity while it is still taking shape. This frequently relates to the prospective entrepreneur's current profession or interests, where he or she perceives:
* a process that can be more efficiently performed,
* an attractive new service or improvement of an existing service, or
* some business or geographic "niche" that is being underserved.
There are often localized opportunities, based on geography, natural resources, human resources in local abundance, and the like. Can you think of any for your area?
Once an idea is thought to represent a real opportunity, one must be able to research the market, know what data is important and how to gather it meaningfully, and know what actions this information indicates. This can then be worked into a rather detailed plan, and then refined into a blueprint for success.
John B. Vinturella, Ph.D. has almost 40 years experience as a management and strategic consultant, entrepreneur, author, and college professor. For 20 of those years, Dr. Vinturella was owner/president of a distribution company that he founded. He is a principal in business opportunity sites jbv.com and muddledconcept.com, and maintains business and political blogs.
Latest News
 NBC4i.com | Ohio House Speaker Budish touts regionalism in his first address WKYC-TV, OH - ... to Ohioans working in startup companies and revive Ohio's cities and Ohio's spirit of entrepreneurialism and make the state a center for green jobs. ... New Ohio House leader wants tax break |
Entrepreneurialism And The Dwarf House PWO, France - To become an entrepreneur is enjoyable when you have a passion for a business idea you are passionate about. However, if you have to become an entrepreneur ... |
PEER 1 Selected to Join Microsoft BizSpark Program FOXBusiness - ... is committed to helping entrepreneurs to transform their ambitions into sustainable, dynamic businesses and to foster innovation and entrepreneurialism. ... |
Ashoka Brings Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship to ... PR Newswire (press release), NY - Due to these critical partnerships, the world's largest community of social entrepreneurs is taking social innovation and entrepreneurialism to new fields. ... |
Medley's Risk 13WHAM-TV, NY - Bob: This is the essence of entrepreneurialism, is to sell others on the risk and get them to invest in the risk. In this case, you’ve got a community ... |
 TechRadar UK | Marissa Mayer on the future of Google TechRadar UK, UK - "There was a tremendous amount of energy, scruffy entrepreneurialism and a sense of hope. We really felt we were working on something that might change the ... |
Twirling Towards Freedom: Letter to a Disgruntled Young Republican Culture11, VA - An open market is essential to the survival of our trademark entrepreneurialism; it is also the root of our historic success. Of course, as the present mess ... |
What now for Russian gold rush? Design Week, UK - 'In places like Almaty [the main commercial centre in Kazakhstan], you will find that there is a similar level of entrepreneurialism as in Moscow, ... |
It's time to get off our laurels – and innovate, innovate, innovate Globe and Mail, Canada - ... are required to spur successful innovation: access to capital; collaboration in pursuit of new ideas; and a culture that promotes entrepreneurialism. ... |
Finding Success When Going It Alone Law.com, CA - I realised that the mentality of our profession, and the conventional structure of law firms, often discourages entrepreneurialism. Decision making in firms ... |
Resources
-
Sorry there are no resources available at this time