Entrepreneurship Opportunities Essay

What are the ways in which entrepreneurs typically identify, evaluate, and exploit opportunities?

Every successful business has to start somewhere, and it is up to the entrepreneur to find their ideas and turn them into opportunities. Before conceptualization can start, the entrepreneur must identify, evaluate and exploit these opportunities, and this can be a lengthy process of ideas and research, and deriving the full benefits from these in order to create a successful business plan. The aim of this essay is to explore and analyze the way in which entrepreneurs do this, through looking into three of Britain’s known entrepreneurs.

Identification of opportunities is the first step in an entrepreneur’s journey to market. They have to establish the opportunities that they are likely to come across so they can determine if their idea is going to be successful; whether developing an industry from scratch, or joining competitors in their existing market. The difference between ideas and opportunities is whether you can get it onto the market; if customers are going to buy it; whether competitors will distract you and whether you can generate sufficient revenue.1

One way in which entrepreneurs commonly identify a business opportunity is through spotting inefficiency in the market, and having an idea of how to correct that inefficiency.2 This is often through personal experience. Take Will King, of King of Shaves, for example; King has had sensitive skin since he was young, and shaving has constantly proved a problem for him, until he was recommended to use his girlfriend’s bath oil; Light bulb, King found his gap in the market and started his company selling shaving oil.

Identifying an opportunity can also occur when you witness a product or service on offer in a different market, or country, that is unavailable in your sector3. Stephen Waring, founder of Green Thumb, discovered that 24% of American homes regularly pay to have their lawns maintained and treated4, however, this was not an available service back in the UK, so Waring did his research and launched his lawn care company in 1986, which is now hugely successful, with 200 branches nationwide5. Similarly, Thea Green of Nails Inc. spent a lot of time working alongside Tatler Magazine in the United States, when she noticed the popularity of nail and manicure bars6, which was not a known indulgence in Britain, and so she brought the idea home and set up her own nail bars.

Entrepreneurial ideas regularly come from existing businesses, and looking into customer needs. Will King’s initial realization was that, regardless of external influences, people will always need to shave, and therefore, people will always need to buy razors and shaving products, and hence he thoroughly believed that a shaving company is inevitably going to be successful; as there is no replacement for directly meeting customer needs. By introducing new shaving oils, he has a unique aspect and therefore competitive advantage over leading shaving companies such as Gillette.

Once an entrepreneur has identified their opportunities, they have to evaluate them to ordain if they are expected to achieve what is required to take the product or service to market, and for it to be a viable business opportunity. Whilst the initial idea may seem strong, and various promising opportunities have been identified, an entrepreneur must ask himself the question of whether the opportunity is worth investing their time, capital, and scarce resources in. The evaluation process initiates questions to help assess the potential for the business venture7, which should not only be answered by the entrepreneur, but with the help of any stakeholders and competitors.

The first, most crucial question that should be asked is, is there a market opportunity for the idea? The market is likely to be the most important factor in launching a new business idea, and so its size, growth, competitors and customers must be strategically

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