Dr Jeff Cornwall

Entrepreneur magazine has its 2006 list of what they consider to be the “hot” opportunities. Food, security and kids are the business categories where they see the most opportunities. This type of list can be a great way to help brainstorm new business ideas.
The most common source of good business opportunities are products/services that have worked in another market. Look for businesses that have taken off in another city, but have not yet caught on where you live. Just because the business has not arrived in your town is not reason enough to start one up. Finding such an opportunity is just the first step.
You still need to do your homework. You need to understand your local market and the potential customers you want to attract. Here are some of the types of questions you need to research:
– What are the similarities and differences between your market and the market where the business has succeeded? Are they similar sizes? Do they have similar demographics? The business idea may require a certain sized city to make sense. It may also require a certain concentration of a specific group of customers to be feasible, for example a large population of retired citizens may make ideas like the retrofitting of seniors’ homes make sense.
– Does your market have a similar or different customer base? Are there regional cultural differences that make an idea work in one location, but not in another? Certain foods are popular in once city, but attempts to market these same foods in another may be a flop. Even mass merchandisers like Target and Wal-Mart stock products based on regional preferences.
– Are there other folks with the same good idea as you? Keep your eye open for potential competitors. Competition may or may not be a problem. Some products are so specialized or the customer base so small that there is only room for one or two players. On the other hand, if the potential customer base is big enough for multiple entrants into the market it is sometimes best to be second or even third into the market. This is one of the many pieces of wisdom that the late Peter Drucker left us. Let the other guys educate the market about the product. Let them spend the money to build a buzz about the product before you jump in and take advantage of the customer awareness they have created. Educating customers about a new product can be quite expensive. Also, the first to offer a new product or service often makes mistakes in a new market that you can learn from. See what they have done wrong and then offer a better option to customers.
Once you get excited about an idea it is critical to quickly become a skeptic. Try to prove to yourself that the idea cannot work. Have others poke holes in your idea. Try to find all of the flaws in the business model. Make sure that your great idea is a real business opportunity.
Taking this approach will help increase your odds of success as an entrepreneur. It will help you throw away seemingly good ideas that just can’t work. It will also make sure that you have planned ahead for many of the challenges that you will face during start-up and growth. You can never anticipate all of the things that can go wrong, but you should be able to identify and plan for enough of them to significantly increase your chances for success.