Journal Entry – Week 13

Recognizing the Right Opportunity for You

“Recognizing and Shaping Opportunities” by Lynda M. Applegate

Opportunity Recognition:

1-      Sensing or perceiving an unmet market need or new technology

2-      Discovering the fit between market needs and your capabilities and resources

3-      Creating a product, service, or solution for a specific market

Advice from Evan Williams:

1-      Be narrow: “Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful.”

2-      Be agile: “Even after extensive market research and the development of a detailed business plan, some of the assumptions underlying the initial business model may be wrong, requiring the entrepreneur to revise important elements after launch.”

Intuitive (gut) Thinking = creative, associative, and fast. It is good for finding patterns and recognizing ideas.

Analytical Thinking = controlled, rational, and relatively slow. It is useful for solving problems by breaking them down into their components.

Five Discovery Skills that Characterize the Most Innovative and Successful Entrepreneurs:

·         Associating – connecting seemingly unrelated questions, problems, or ideas

·         Questioning – asking questions that challenge conventional wisdom and the status quo

·         Observing – scrutinizing common phenomena, particularly the behavior of customers

·         Networking – cultivating a network with diverse perspectives, expertise, and experiences

·         Experimenting – reducing uncertainty by designing focused experiments to test assumptions and “learn by doing”

“Identifying and Exploiting the Right Entrepreneurial Opportunity…for You” by Howard H. Stevenson and Shirley M. Spence

The key = is not to blind oneself to new possibilities by defining the opportunity too narrowly or being too single minded.

The Most Important Premise = if we are to make full use of our opportunities in life, we must know ourselves – in particular, our strengths and our weaknesses.

Environments to Operate in = those with great uncertainty, rapid growth, radical change, and extremely limited resources. This context rewards individuals who are opportunity-driven, cash-focused, single-minded, and flexible, and with a sense of urgency and ownership.

What you Need = appropriate business skills and tools, the ability to manage the inevitable tensions between the business and the personal aspects of your life.

“Whatever path you take in the short run, it is important to consider the longer-term impact of your choice. It may close some doors, but it will also some new ones.”

“Most entrepreneurs would agree that building a business is more than a job; it is a passion.”

“I learned this…that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet a success unexpected in the common hours…If you have built castles in the sir, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundation under them.” Henry Thoreau

“An Attitude of Gratitude” by Thomas S. Monson

The Plagues of Today:

·         Selfishness

·         Greed

·         Indulgence

·         Cruelty

·         Crime

·         Criticism

·         Complaining

·         Blame

Things that are Right:

·         Teachers who teach

·         Ministers who minister

·         Marriages that make it

·         Parents who sacrifice

·         Friends who help

Things to be Grateful For:

·         Mothers

·         Fathers

·         Teachers

·         Friends

·         Country

·         The Savior

What I have learned:

I think my biggest take-home this week was to see each step of our journey and each experience as an opportunity to increase our potential for success. Every job we do, each person we meet, each struggle we face will leave a mark on us. No education we receive is ever a waste of our time. So, if we have to start at the bottom and work our way up, gather all the knowledge and training we can and carry it with us up the ladder.