entrepreneurship boot camp opportunity recognition
TRANSCRIPT
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Entrepreneurship
Boot Camp Opportunity Recognition
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Mind Buster
How did Paul Orfalea get the idea for Kinko’s?
How did Fred Smith get the idea for Fed Express?
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Opportunity Stoppers
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
• You got here by knowing the rules and doing what was asked – a formula approach – coloring inside the lines
• You have been trained to expect a correct answer
• Students ask me if I like their idea. I tell them no one knows if it is good.
Rule 1: Entrepreneurship is not a formula.
Getting Over Your Success
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
• Need to be curious, perceptive, open to new, open to change, prepared to listen without challenge
• Must tolerate and then thrive on ambiguity
• Look for opportunity in situations that appear to be negative on the surface
Rule 2: Slow down and see the opportunity
Your Mindset
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
•Thousand spend time on ideas. It’s not about ideas, it is about customers.
•Many exciting successes come from modest offerings, often imitating other things.
•People and situations create ideas, isolation does not.
Rule 3: Don’t spend time trying to come up with a new widget, spend time out there.
Ideas Don’t Make Opportunities
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Your Knowledge Base Counts
• Game is not played at 30,000 feet
• Prior experience and industry knowledge account for 87% of successes
• Most entrepreneurs are not successful on their first venture
• You need to know the territory
• Rule 4: Get physical fast, get into the hunt
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Ideas come everyday
• You see them in different form
• Ask people their business problems
• People come to you to have you create their solution – the organizational entrepreneur
Rule 5: Develop a filtering process to determine value of idea
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Inventory Yourself
• How open are you to embarrassment?• Can you tolerate rejection?• Will you quit before it is time?• What is your tolerance of failure?• Rank your level of Perseverance and Perception
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Prior knowledge and the Discovery of Entrepreneurial Opportunities
Scott Shane
• Shane shares the result of his research which suggests that entrepreneurs discovery is dependent on what they know (often referred to as industry knowledge) and that most opportunity recognition is by chance and not by a methodical search.
• In more common terms, entrepreneurs use the phrase – Who can spot a twenty-dollar bill?
• Someone who knows what it looks like and is looking for it.
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Why Wilbur and Orville Wright? Some thoughts on the Wright Brothers and the process of invention
Tom Crouch • How can two brothers who owned a bicycle shop in Ohio
be responsible for the first flight of man at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina?
• Several major efforts by the best research universities and companies had failed to answer the riddle of man flight.
• The article contains a great deal about their home environment and early work experience – both factors found often in successful entrepreneurs.
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Why the Wright Brothers were the first to fly.
Known as Intelligent Failure.
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Consider Stages
Four stages of entrepreneurial growth
Stage OneIdea to First Customer
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Stage 1 - idea to first customer• Total focus on customer
– Never assume you are the customer– Your market is not your customer
• Big guys fail 99% of the time• Why will E win??• Because you are driving to a single
customer, not to a market share
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Consider Stages
Four stages of entrepreneurial growth
Stage OneIdea to First Customer
Stage TwoFirst Customer to Multiple Customers
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Stage 2 - first to multiple customers
• Initial customers provide credibility• Growing from one to many is first
sign of change– move from “I” to “We”– execution team starts to form– selling benefit through others
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Consider Stages
Four stages of entrepreneurial growth
Stage OneIdea to First Customer
Stage TwoFirst Customer to Multiple Customers
Stage Three
Multiple Customers to Multiple Customer & Multiple Products
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Stage 3 - multiple customers to multiple customers and
multiple products• Benefit offerings more critical
– Establish needs and fulfill them– Don’t revert to classic management
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Consider Stages
Four stages of entrepreneurial growth
Stage OneIdea to First Customer
Stage TwoFirst Customer to Multiple Customers
Stage Three
Multiple Customers to Multiple Customer & Multiple Products
Stage Four
Multiple Customers to & Multiple Products to Harvest \ Reinvention
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Stage 4 - multiple to harvest \ reinvention• Policies and procedures - necessary
evil• Two primary options - sell or reinvent
and reposition
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Reading Review
New Venture Ideas: do not overlook experience factor
Karl H. Vesper • What are the best sources for new ideas? Vesper gives
a checklist to all who are looking for the opportunity they can turn into a venture.
• Vesper confirms the importance of know what you know; what some call industry knowledge and what he calls experience.
Lloyd Greif Centerfor Entrepreneurial Studies
Tom O’MaliaOrfalea Chair for Entrepreneurial [email protected]
Lloyd Greif CenterMarshall School of BusinessUniversity of Southern CaliforniaBridge Hall OneLos Angeles, CA 90089-0801