7 ways to discover entrepreneurial opportunities and seize the four major opportunities for entrepreneurship

Entrepreneurship is when entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial partners optimize and integrate the resources they have or can possess through hard work. The process of creating greater economic or social value. The following are 7 ways to discover entrepreneurial opportunities and seize the four major opportunities for entrepreneurship that I have compiled for you. You are welcome to learn from and refer to them. I hope it will be helpful to you.

7 Ways to Discover Entrepreneurship Opportunities

There are many sources of entrepreneurial ideas and concepts. According to a study of two hundred outstanding entrepreneurs, there are four main sources of entrepreneurial ideas:

1. Redesign and improve existing products and services;

2. Follow new trends, such as e-commerce and the Internet;

3. Chance;

4. Discover entrepreneurial opportunities through systematic research.

When an emerging industry emerges, it will inevitably provide many entrepreneurial opportunities and trigger a large number of entrepreneurial booms. However, there are also considerable risks behind following new trends. Because it seems uncertain how large this emerging industry will be and how to specifically explore potential customer needs. When the personal computer industry emerged, it triggered a large number of entrepreneurial opportunities for upstream and downstream related products and services, but not all of them were successful. Some people attribute the emergence of entrepreneurial ideas to chance, the so-called "unintentional intervention". However, experts who study creativity believe that creativity is just the tip of the iceberg. Without daily hard work, opportunities will not be such a coincidence. Countless people saw an apple falling, but only Newton could associate it with gravity. The so-called serendipity or sixth sense intuition is mainly due to the fact that entrepreneurs have developed a keen observation ability to detect changes in the environment in daily life. Therefore, they can form creative ideas in advance. For example, when the San Francisco Gold Rush was taking shape, countless poor people rushed to the Gold Mountains with longing for beauty. However, the founder of Levi's Company saw the business opportunity of "supplying strong and durable canvas" by chance. Therefore, he immediately started the production business of jeans made from canvas and sold the products to the many gold diggers mentioned above, which became a good example of starting a business in the future.

The method of discovering entrepreneurial opportunities can be roughly summarized into the following seven methods:

1. Discover entrepreneurial opportunities by analyzing special events. For example, a blast furnace steelmaking plant in the United States had to purchase a mini steel furnace due to lack of funds, and then unexpectedly found that the profit rate of the latter was higher than that of the former. After further analysis, it was discovered that the structure of the U.S. steel market has changed, so this steel mill will focus its future investment on mini-steelmaking technology that can quickly respond to market demand.

2. Explore entrepreneurial opportunities by analyzing contradictory phenomena. For example, most of the services and products provided by financial institutions are only targeted at large professional investors, but the general investing public, who account for 70% of the market's funds, have not received due attention. Such contradictions show that the product market that provides investment services to the general public will definitely have great potential.

3. Discover entrepreneurial opportunities by analyzing work procedures. For example, in the global production and logistics system process, you can discover a lot of entrepreneurial opportunities in information services and software development.

Fourth, explore entrepreneurial opportunities by analyzing the changing trends of industry and market structure. For example, in the trend of privatization of state-owned enterprises and open market free competition in public sector industries, we can explore numerous entrepreneurial opportunities in the transportation, telecommunications, and energy industries. Many new entrepreneurial opportunities can also be found in the knowledge economy program just launched by the government.

5. Explore entrepreneurial opportunities by analyzing changing trends in demographic data. For example, the rapid increase in single-parent families, the trend of women's employment, the phenomenon of an aging society, changes in education levels, the expansion of young people's international outlook... will inevitably provide many new market opportunities.

6. Explore entrepreneurial opportunities through changes in values ??and cognition. For example, changes in people's understanding of dietary needs have created emerging industries such as the gourmet food market and the health food market.

7. Explore entrepreneurial opportunities through the generation of new knowledge.

For example, when human genetic images are completely solved, it can be expected that it will inevitably bring about many new business opportunities in fields such as biotechnology and medical services.

Although a large number of entrepreneurial opportunities can be discovered through systematic research, the best ideas still come from the long-term observation and life experience of entrepreneurs. Starting a business is like being pregnant for ten months. The idea of ??starting a business is constantly being thought about, brewed, and studied repeatedly in the entrepreneur's mind until the entrepreneur feels that the time has come.

How to discover and seize the four major opportunities for entrepreneurship

First, seize opportunities from "low technology".

With the development of science and technology, the development of high-tech fields is a hot topic nowadays. However, corporate opportunities are not exclusive to the “high-tech sector.” There are also opportunities in so-called "low-tech fields" such as transportation, finance, health care, food, and distribution. The key lies in development.

Second, change is opportunity.

Changes in the environment will bring good opportunities to all walks of life. Through these changes, people will discover new prospects. These changes can include: changes in industrial structure; scientific and technological progress; communications innovation; government deregulation; economic informatization and service-oriented; changes in values ??and lifestyles; and changes in demographic structure. Taking changes in demographic factors as an example, the following opportunities can be cited:

1. Health protection supplies for the elderly

2. Business projects serving only children

3. Supplies for young women and working women

4. Cultural and entertainment supplies for families

Third, if you pursue "negative", you will find opportunities.

The so-called pursuit of "negative" means focusing on those things that "distress" and "trouble" everyone. Because it is distress and trouble, people are always eager to solve it. If a solution can be provided, it is actually an opportunity. For example, in dual-income families, there is no time to take care of children, so home nurseries are established; if there is no time to buy groceries, grocery delivery companies are created. These are all examples of looking for opportunities from the “negative” side.

Fourth, there will be opportunities if you focus on the needs of certain customers.

Opportunities cannot be found from all customers, because customers need to be easily recognized, and it is basically difficult to find a breakthrough. In fact, everyone's needs are different. If we often pay attention to the daily life and work of certain people, we will find certain opportunities. Therefore, when looking for opportunities, you should get used to classifying customers, such as government employees, vegetable farmers, university lecturers, literary editors, primary school students, single women, retired employees, etc. If you carefully study the demand characteristics of various types of personnel, you will find many opportunities.

Where are the opportunities for entrepreneurial experience?

"It is difficult to start a business at any time." said Su Yulie, a partner of Qingyang Investment.

Indeed. Judging from the average book investment return of VC exits, the price-to-earnings ratio of new A-share issuances dropped in the first half of 2012, and Chinese concept stocks encountered a crisis of confidence overseas, resulting in unsatisfactory IPO exit returns.

The British version of "Wired" magazine stated in a special report on entrepreneurship in May 2012 that from a global perspective, now is a good time to start a business.

This is exactly opposite to the opinions of Chinese venture investors. Shao Jun, a founding partner of Detong Capital, is particularly worried about intellectual property risks when investing in Chinese companies. Because the domestic protection of intellectual property rights is insufficient, a new company's products or services can easily be copied.

The diametrically opposite approach of the big players also cost him. What Shao Jun sees is that in mature markets like the United States, where the industrial chain is developed and complete, entrepreneurs can make a good living by providing solutions for market segments. Because he can easily sell his products to big players. Cisco has acquired more than 150 companies since 1999. Many foreign entrepreneurs aim to be acquired by Cisco when they first start their business.

However, in China, big players are not willing to buy at a premium, and sometimes prefer to spend money to do it themselves. Small companies eventually have to be squeezed out by big companies.

Shao Jun was once an investor in the well-known communications company Harbor Network. Harbor Network has leading technology in broadband IP basic network equipment. “At that time, I always thought that Huawei would come to buy us, but it turned out that when Harbor Networks sold this product, Huawei gave it away, and in the end (Harbor Networks) failed.

”

Su Yulie summarized China’s entrepreneurial environment as “high market risk, high policy risk, and high business integrity risk”. The 27-year-old established China’s youngest angel investment company with his friends three years ago. Fund Qingyang Fund, so he is both an investor and an entrepreneur. He has almost encountered the same problems that entrepreneurs encounter due to lack of trust and support. In 2011, Su Yulie's fund also encountered the same problem due to the economic downturn. There were setbacks: he couldn't raise enough money, and the projects he invested in were often problematic in the eyes of his colleagues.

"Many people thought that I was bound to die," but Su Yulie felt that he had come out of the desperate situation. The reason why he was able to survive the crisis was due to the accumulation of resources and decisiveness in cooperation. He is not the kind of investor who deliberately distances himself from entrepreneurs. He is willing to contact people from various circles and is willing to do so. Sharing, it was these resources that helped him fill the 10 million yuan fundraising gap.

In Su Yulie's eyes, there is always a way to achieve success. With angel investor Xu Xiaoping’s investment, Su Yulie called him every two or three days for five consecutive months. At that time, Xu Xiaoping expressed “interest” in Su Yulie’s project, but he himself was “either on a plane or in a meeting. Or not in the service area."

This is another familiar story that happened to Su Yulie - after five months of "stalking", one day, Xu Xiaoping picked up the phone and asked Su Yulie to meet. 20 minutes after meeting, Xu Xiaoping became Su Yulie’s first investor.

“Out of 1,000 people, there will always be 300 people willing to talk to you; about a hundred of them will be interested in you. Ten people will discuss the plan with you in depth, and eventually one-tenth of them will implement it with you. "But success is not just a matter of probability: Can you find 1,000 people? This "can" not only refers to whether you are willing to persist, but also refers to whether you have such ability.

Be optimistic , due to the economic downturn, many inferior products were eliminated, but precisely because of the bad market, the demand for good products was also stronger. A slightly older example comes from Motorola, which was founded in 1929. From 1929 to 1939, the world economy. After 10 years of the Great Depression, their car radios were still one of the first commercially successful car radios in the 1930s.

If you haven’t prepared yourself completely for starting a business. Be prepared, if you are hesitating, you are right. Because starting a business is difficult at any time, you must be cautious. But on the other hand, if you are just worried about the bad weather, it is better to have the courage: since there is never anything good about starting a business. Time, just go out bravely. The premise is that you clearly know what you want to do, even if your small business may seem far away from angel investment and Series A financing.

Looking for entrepreneurship. Opportunities

Many people think about starting a business all day long, thinking about how to make money quickly! Wherever there are so-called opportunities on the Internet, they will go wherever the advertisement says they can make 1,000 a day! Run.

As a result, many people were deceived like this. Today, I almost made the same mistake.

I saw a piece of news online about a xxx party in Shanghai. A new gadget: the xx fan. It’s actually a small portable fan, but the blades light up (there are LED lights on it) and it spins beautifully.

I thought this thing would be very comfortable. It has just been launched on the market (it turned out to be a big mistake later). If I can grasp it well and start an agent or something, I can still make some money. So after searching for a long time, I finally found the person who sells it and the online store. . 22 yuan. I wanted to buy one, and then get the manufacturer’s contact information and get the goods myself. But I couldn’t trade because I had to exchange my ID card, which cost me a whole morning. I couldn't find the manufacturer's phone number with my words, but to no avail.

I searched all the major search engines, including various large and small business websites and online auction stores, and found out that this one claimed to be "xx fan". I couldn't find anything, and the manufacturer couldn't be found. It was all related to the news. Later, I accidentally discovered that she might have purchased the goods from Lanzhou, so I looked for the electrical appliance manufacturer in Lanzhou to no avail. "The word.

You won’t know if you don’t look for it, but you will be surprised if you look for it! ! ! This thing is actually a light-emitting fan, and some manufacturers can ship it for less than 3 yuan (of course the quantity cannot be too small). Then go to the auction website to look for it, there are tons of them! ! They sold it for 5 yuan! !

Fundamentally speaking, this thing is not new, yet this thing is even reported! And he used a "xx fan" instead of a "light-emitting fan", which misled readers. And that seller was not kind, selling something for 3 yuan for 22 yuan! And it's also making money from those who don't know. Also taking advantage of this "new vocabulary"! If you follow her definition of "xx fan", you will only find her shop! But if you look for a "small fan", you will burst your blood vessels!

So, you want to start a business? It’s not just a random collision! You must not easily believe those advertisements that say "start a business and earn 100,000 a month!!" or "make big money with small projects"! Is money so easy to make? There will be no pie falling from the sky! Work hard and work hard! Accumulate professional knowledge and social experience so that when real opportunities come, you can seize them. Otherwise, you will just become the laughing stock of scammers when they count their money! "Have you really encountered the opportunity to start a business?" 》

17 Little Mistakes That Waste Your Chances of Successful Entrepreneurship

1. You bear too many responsibilities.

The much-lauded “can-do” attitude is more limiting than it sounds. Business owners insist that they can do it themselves, but inadvertently overlook the efficiencies that can be generated by delegating tasks to others, including outsourcing. Leaders who lack skills in certain areas, accept your role: Responsible for recruiting outstanding, experienced candidates who can reduce the workload of managers!

2. Carrying too much debt debt.

Debt financing is a practical option for companies unwilling to give up equity, but borrowing money from banks and investors can be difficult to raise and can actually bring more money to the company. Much trouble. If a company expects to grow by 10% next year, it would be difficult for it to accept a loan with a cumulative annual interest rate of 15%. For companies that borrow credit cards with annual interest rates as high as 21.99%, their financing methods are even worse.

3. Slow response in website optimization.

As of January, according to a report released by the Pew Research Center, 58% of American adults owned a smartphone. Businesses whose websites are not optimized for mobile reading and retain many potential customers online are letting potential revenue slip away. Few users these days have the patience to zoom or drag to read or view things on a website.

4. Communicate repeatedly about wrong things.

One job of bosses is to ensure that everyone on the team can achieve *** consciousness. Although it takes a lot of work to speak carefully, clarify points, and communicate adequately, if communication is poor, it can easily create new problems and undermine morale. It's better to be careful every time you say something than to have someone misinterpret your meaning and waste time doing so.

5. Unable to turn the knowledge you read into action.

If entrepreneurs cannot use this knowledge skillfully when reading about entrepreneurship, business management, marketing or planning, it is a waste of time. I'm all for individual self-improvement, but I also firmly believe that if people can't turn knowledge into action and create value, then they've gained nothing.

6. Make a company product website that only tells the content but does not have a call to action.

Every page on your company website should have a purpose. It's a very altruistic act for a business to create content that informs consumers about an industry, or teaches them something new, but without a meaningful call to action on every page, the opportunity is lost.

7. Forgot the fundamental performance of the website.

A fancy website is great, but if it takes minutes to fully load, no one is going to look at it. Audiences in the digital world are impatient and will change their minds without hesitation.

8. Allow yourself/employees/the entire company to give up vacation time.

As a manager, if you feel you have to work continuously, let alone set aside a few hours a day away from your computer, the impact of work on you will be detrimental. The feeling of constant anxiety is all too familiar to many entrepreneurs. Stress and burnout are serious issues. What is overlooked is that, for managers and companies, the cost of driving with a "half full tank" is significantly higher than the cost of a five-day vacation at a resort.

9. Underestimate your influence in social media.

Although it’s harder than ever for many companies to promote through search engines and competitive marketing campaigns due to algorithm changes, you can still do some work on the user side. For any website visitor, adding prominent social sharing buttons will impress those who "like" Weibo or social media, making sharing your content a "no-brainer".

10. Change your contact information rashly.

Changing a business leader's contact information may be effortless, but it can be a nightmare for acquaintances, clients, and friends who find it nearly impossible to find that person. While it's common practice to promptly notify contacts of your new address, email address, or phone number, it's also a good idea to consider having a call forwarding service in place for the longer term. One never knows when someone from a past acquaintance might “ping” you with their next six-figure deal.

11. Making decisions without data.

Without using performance metrics, it’s easy to make the same mistakes over and over again. Through data analysis, you can find out the reasons for basic business problems such as low sales conversion rate or high customer churn rate.

12. Poor supplier relationship management.

When suppliers expect a steady stream of orders, but you fail to tell them about the slow supply season, this may cause them to quickly put your company on the list of undesirable customers. Taking months to admit something negative could ultimately lead to them terminating the company and labeling your company an "unreliable partner." Earn their trust by being candid and honest to lay a solid foundation for a sustainable, long-term relationship.

13. Miss the marketing opportunity.

Marketing opportunities are everywhere. For example, the 404 page of your website. It's a painful user experience: when a user clicks on a link, they arrive at an unimaginative 404 page. Optimize your company’s error pages in a way that leaves users chuckling rather than shaking their heads in disappointment. Lack of inspiration? Check out this link: The best 404 pages on the internet. You can be inspired.

14. Spending too much on online payment methods.

Credit card fees are expensive. But there are cheaper alternatives worth adopting, such as LevelUp, or FreshBooks, which charges a flat fee of 50 cents for online payments in partnership with PayPal.

15. Only sell product features, not solutions.

Customers have a range of questions, but a company's products and services don't mean much to them unless their benefits are clearly stated. The features you promote tell only part of the truth. Most customers really only want to hear a "spoiler" about how a particular product for sale can help them in their current situation.

16. Reduce the size of the infrastructure budget.

The idea of ??spending hundreds of dollars a month for something as basic as web hosting is easy to laugh at. But you have to understand that although you can find alternatives and get a good value for only $19 per month, the company owners still want to have the product in place months before the website may crash. upgrade. Don't be afraid of spending money. The loss of sales profits during the website downtime may be much more than the cost of upgrading to a premium web hosting.

17. Think SEO is easy.

For many websites, search engines still account for 40% of overall traffic.

The content of SEO is not something mysterious. Although it has become an advanced skill for many marketers to master, most startups still only have a basic understanding of it.

As an entrepreneur, what stupid mistakes have you made that cost you more than the monthly office rent? ;