Entrepreneurship

&
New Venture
CREATIVITY
Remember Entrepreneurs Are:
 Innovative
 Creative

 Excellence

 Egos
 The Entrepreneurial Vision
 Innovation not imitation
 Propensity to Action

 Marketing honesty

 Drive for dominance

 Vision beyond the mundane

Finding ideas for new
ventures
 Viable Products/Services
 Need more than just good science or
technology
 Need an understanding of market

needs, fears, and wants even at the

early stages of development
 Require an understanding of the

competitive londscape and the external

environments in each market.
 FOUR FACTORS
 Buyer Utility
 Strategic Pricing
 Business Model
 Adoption Hurdles
 BUYER UTILITY
Is there a compelling reason for
customers to buy a new product or
service? Utility and technical advance
are not the same.
 BUSINESS MODEL
How can a company profitably deliver the
new product, or service idea?
Are costs, capabilities and pricing
appropriate to the task?
STRATEGIC PRICING

How can a company price its new

product or service to attract the
mass buyers?
 ADOPTION HURDLES
Are there reasons why an idea may
not be accepted by customers,
employees, strategic partners,
regulatory agencies, insurance firms,
or society?
 EXAMPLES:
 Engineering marvel
 Diverse functions

 Theoretically could do almost

anything
 Reality it could do very little

 Customers did not know how to use

 Lacked attractive software titles

 BUYER UTILITY LEVERS
 Customer productivity
 Simplicity

 Convenience

 Risk mitigation

 Fun and Image

 Environmental friendliness
 Customer productivity
 What is the biggest block to
customer’s productivity?
 How does your product or service

eliminate it?
Customer productivity
Hoover’s leap in suction power
made vacuum cleaning quicker
and easier.
 Simplicity
 What is the greatest source of
complexity for customers?
 How does this innovative product or

service dramatically simplify this?

 Simplicity
Intuit’s Quicken software eliminated
accounting jargon from personal
financial accounting.
 Convenience
 What is the greatest inconvenience
for customers or customer groups?
 How does the innovative product or

service remove the hassle?

 Convenience
Virgin Atlantic Airlines’ business
class door-to-door limousine service
helped ease the hassle of air travel
for the most frequent and highest
paying travelers.
 Risk Mitigation
 What are the greatest uncertainties
buyers face?
 How does this innovative product or

service eliminate these risks?

 What new risks does this product or

service create?
 Risk Mitigation
Enron’s commodity swaps and
futures contracts stripped the
volatility out of gas and electric
prices before they got caught up in
their financial troubles.
 Fun and Image
 What are the biggest blocks to
enjoyment and image?
 How does this innovative product or

service add positive emotion or

status to the life of the user?
 Fun and Image
Starbuck’s chic coffee bars are much
more than a place to buy a hot drink.
 Environmental friendliness
 What causes the greatest harm to
the environment?
 How does the innovative product or

service reduce or eliminate this?

 Environmental
friendliness
Phillips’ Alto light bulb uses less
mercury than earlier designs which
means eliminating the costs to
businesses of special dumping sites in
Europe.
 Remember that
Entrepreneurship starts with
opportunity. The issues is
where to find opportunities?
TWELVE STAGES IN
THE CREATIVE
PROBLEM-SOVLING
PROCESS.
 KEYS TO PROBLEM
SOLVING
Different tasks call for variations in the
Different tasks call for variations in the
phases,
The 12 steps comprise the complete cycle,
You may bypass some phases or recycle.
 AWARENESS OF
OPPORTUNITY
Divergent or imaginative thinkers
tend to note opportunities or problems.
Curiosity and attention are essential
for noticing what’s wrong or what is an
opportunity.
 DEFINING THE ISSUE
 Go beyond mere symptoms to the core
• Need
• Want, or
• Fear.
 Isolate what you’re looking for or focus.
 FOCUS, FOCUS, AND FOCUS
 ACCEPTANCE
 This all-too-often-neglected aspect
involves allowing the issue to have a
life of its own.
 Engage the problem.

 Allow the problem or goal to become

your process.
 DATA-GATHERING
EXPERTISE
“Chance favors the expert.”
Pasteur

Find pertinent facts.

Look at the source of the data. Don’t
expect certainty.
 ANALYZE DATA

 Use well-established logical models,

 Blend with intuitive techniques.
 Don’t forget your professional
training, nor be imprisoned by it.
 GENERATE NEW IDEAS
 Unbundle your assumptions about
how things ought to be.
 Through brainstorming or other
methods, produce a large quantity of
possible solutions.
 INCUBATION
“Don’t just do something;
stand there for a while.”
Allow ideas time to hatch or ferment.
But, don’t stand forever waiting
either.
SYNTHESIS =“AH HA!”=
ENLIGHTENMENT
In other words: The “Eureka”
event.
SELECTING or
DECIDING

Which idea will you

implement?
 SIMULATION &
VERIFICATION
What are the risks?
In a low risk situation, you might skip
this step.
When building a passenger aircraft,
new drug, or life impacting idea you
dare not skip.
 ORGANIZATIONAL
ACCEPTANCE
People support what they help create.
Involve people early on.
Great ideas will die without the support of
key decision-makers.
 IMPLEMENTATION &
EVALUATION
Take action on the chosen idea, hence
the meaning of the term “Entrepreneur,”
to enter and to do.
Determine the effects. What are the
potential outcomes: profits,
sustainability acceptance, etc.
APPLY CREATIVE DECISION
MAKING TO THE
DEVELOPMENT OF YOUR
BUSINESS CONCEPT.
Think of these issues when
you read the course
material, when we discuss
issues in class, etc..
 ELEVATOR PITCHES
 Can you explain your idea in 3
minutes?
 Is your idea a solution looking for a

problem?
 Are you creating bigger problems

than you are solving?

 Why should others be interested in

your idea?
How to keep the ideas coming..
 Put a technology to other uses
 Modify, adapt

 Magnify (bigger, stronger, higher)

 Substitute (what else instead, who

else instead)
 Rearrange, reverse or combine

Source: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to New Product Development

QUESTIONS?