Entrepreneurial alertness has generated a lot of buzz around lately with its emphasis on entrepreneurs being constantly alert seeking for opportunities or better saying, the next big thing. This isn't a new phenomena, there is a small part of entrepreneurs who are born with it, their cognitive process is unconscious, they just do it without an intention. However the rest of us try to learn and adopt it, exercise and repeat it until it becomes a part of our daily life. What i want to say is that some entrepreneurs constantly see opportunities and link the dots without even knowing while others struggle and look for opportunities on purpose.
This gave me a reason to contemplate on how do these entrepreneurs come up with such great unheard, "why didn't I think of that" ideas. Do they follow a process or it just comes natural to them. Well all these ideas have something in common, they are emerging patterns and uncover unmet needs which helps us to understand where these entrepreneurs look for opportunities and/or ideas.
Most ideas come from customer usage and perception, how many times have you been dissatisfied with using a product unable to satisfy your needs. Well the ordinary people usually just complain about it, whether-as entrepreneurs try to solve the problem, come up with a solution.
It is essential for entrepreneurs if they want to come up with ideas about improving their product, or just spotting opportunities to look what the customer is doing with the product, how they are using it and most importantly why they buy it. Is it the experience that they want from that product or service, or the perceived value they think the product has. This process is called Design Thinking and its main goal is to understand what's the overall experience, what customers are trying to do or achieve by buying a particular product.
Other things to look when spotting opportunities is the feedback loop that customers give for a product. This is why organizations want customer feedback and conduct focus groups, to understand why they're dissatisfied, with what they're dissatisfied and what is the problem that they encounter when purchasing products, using them or even in the post purchase process. It is also worth it to look at alternatives (usually organizations don't bother with that), or substitutes and try to understand why they choose to buy from others and not from you.
These methods will help entrepreneurs spot opportunities, link the dots and even come up with new ideas about their startup. However it is important to consider factors that foster opportunity recognition which are, (1) the knowledge which the entrepreneur possesses, be it from educational background or life experiences. Usually individuals who traveled or lived in different parts of the world and have experienced different cultures can benefit from these life experience to come up with more different solutions, unique and out of the box in their context.
(2) Creativity plays a vital role too, being able to think freely and brainstorm to come up with various solutions interestingly enough it can be appealing to the customers.
And last but most important in spotting emerging trends is (3) Networking.
An great example can be the Oxygen Media CEO Gerry Laybourne who in her morning routine one or twice a week she takes a walk in Central Park with a young person seeking her advice. She describes it as a way of helping bring along the next generation. Since her busy schedule does not allow for her to do it in her office, the morning routine allows her to get exercise, stay connected with young people (networking) and get valuable insights and ideas from the fresh minds of today.
I leave you with my final sentence that "opportunities do not have a tag with them, you have to get your hands dirty and constantly be aware, develop your entrepreneurial alertness by being curious about everything that happens in your environment and you can link the dots, let no opportunity get away and ideas will flow in your mind automatically".
Suggest your opportunity recognition process, how you do it and how it helped you, share your insight with others as others shared it with you.
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