RECOGNIZING AND SHAPING AN OPPORTUNITY

Objectives:

Understand the nature of entrepreneurial opportunity through discovery and

creation
Discuss creativity, its challenges and how to develop creative skills
Explain problem solving as it relates to creativity and entrepreneurship
Understand types of innovation and the innovation process

DR. YOSHIRO NAKAMATSU -> a genius inventor (3,218 inventions)

ex. floppy disk, cd, disk player, digital watch, water-powered engine,
gravity controller that made autopilot possible

Entrepreneurs, in addition to having ideas, they know how to extract

value from those ideas and turn them into opportunities that have
commercial potential.

Difference between Idea and Opportunity

Ideas - are commodity, everyone has them, dozens of them

everyday.

Opportunities have potential for extracting value

We normally talk about creativity and problem-solving, it is in the

context of ideas.
Creativity and problem solving skills are critical to entrepreneurs
ability to shape an opportunity in such a way that more value is
extracted from it.

Two Theories of Entrepreneurial Opportunity: (how opportunity

happens)

1. Discovery theory - sees opportunity arising from shifts in

external factors in in the market or industry Ex. regulation,
technological changes, changes in customer preference)
opportunities out there waiting to be discovered
they require a more systematic approach to scanning the
environment
alertness or awareness of the entrep make them better at
discovering or recognizing opportunities when they see it.

2. Creation theory ->

 entrepreneurs are the actors, that is, entrep create
opportunities via their actions, reactions, and experiments
around new products, services and business models.
Opportunities do not necessarily emerge out of existing
industries or markets
Search is not associated with creation theory
Entrep act and then monitor how customer respond to
those actions
There are no seeds for opportunities in the industry/market
environment
Can emerge without any planning or foresights
Creation entrep are willing to generalize from small
samples, take more risk with less information and rely on
their own abilities to develop opportunities

CREATIVITY-> enables entrep to differentiate their business from

competitors so that customers will notice them
the basis for invention (discovering something that did not
exist previously)
the basis for innovation (finding a new way to do something or
improving on an existing product or service)
fundamental to problem solving

CHALLENGES TO CREATIVITY

1. No time for creativity

2. No confidence

DEVELOPING CREATIVE SKILLS

1. Design an environment to stimulate creativity

2. Log Ideas
3. Put the familiar into a new context
4. Take advantage of a personal network
5. Return to childhood