Entrepreneurship 110Entrepreneurship 110

Ideas and OpportunitiesPages 87 ff. in the text book

Ideas vs. OpportunitiesIdeas vs. Opportunities

There is a difference between ideas and opportunities.

Idea – a thought or concept for a product or service.Opportunity – a need, want, problem or challenge can be satisfied by an Entrepreneurial venture.

What comes first, an idea What comes first, an idea or opportunity?or opportunity?

Sometimes an Entrepreneur will identify a problem, see an opportunity, and then come up with an idea to take advantage of the situation. When the opportunity arrives first and you think of an idea to fill it, it is called

Market-pulled Entrepreneurship.Example: you hear from friends, family and even some folks in the community that there needs to be a place on the Northside to buy Tacos.

Or you know of a long stretch of highway where there are no fuel stations, and you here of people complaining

When an Entrepreneur comes up with an idea first and then

attempts to find an opportunity for it, this is referred to as

Product or Service Driven Entrepreneurship.

You have a great idea to sell Cake Pops at the Boyce Farmer Market, however there is no market for these, most people don’t even know what they are. So you set up a booth and for 3 weeks you display, sell and give away lots of free samples.

Determine if a venture is “Market Pulled Entrepreneurship” or “Product/Service Driven Entrepreneurship.”

Be able to explain your answer to the class.

VideoVideoIce Hotel - Canada

ChangeChangeSuccessful Entrepreneurs are

aware of change.From change comes both ideas

and opportunities.There are two main types of

change that an Entrepreneur focuses upon: fads and trends.

FadsFads Short lived products or services. Arrive out of nowhere, experience a

BOOM in sales and then disappear. Some fads may reappear years later.

TrendsTrendsA trend is longer lasting than a fad.Furthermore, a trend impacts society

and our lives, where a fad does not. A trend changes the way that we live.

Entrepreneurs will encounter more long term success with trends than fads.

Organic FoodOrganic FoodOrganics have grown at a rate of nearly 20 percent

per year for the last seven years, and industry experts are forecasting continued growth.

One study forecasted that overall, the everyday use of organic products of all kinds will be both accepted and routine by the year 2025

Environmental Concerns

Forecasting TrendsForecasting TrendsEntrepreneurs do not just wait for

trends to happen, but instead attempt to forecast them. Why? So that they might create ventures that take advantage of them.

Accurate forecasting depends on your ability to organize data in a way that will help you see patterns.

One of the easiest ways to forecast trends is through “Time Series Forecasting.”

Time Series Time Series ForecastingForecastingWith this method, you plot data from

the past and present on a graph.Next, you analyze the trend that you

see and make predictions about the future.

With each set of data a trend will emerge (growth trend, stable situation or declining trend) as well as lines for each (linear, curved, irregular, or cyclical).

Types of Types of Trends Trends

Growth Trend:

Declining Trend

Stable Situation

Types of Lines on a Types of Lines on a GraphGraph

Linear

Irregular

Cyclical

Curved

What is the line and What is the line and trend?trend?Cell Phone Contract Subscribers

Answer – a curved lines with a growth trend

AssignmentAssignmentGroups of 2-3Groups of 2-3Looking back through the list of fads,

look for possible venture ideas that could be brought back for another cycle.

It is hard to identify a trend or a fad when we are “in it” but try to imagine what products and services we are experiencing today that will soon Bust and or Boom.