Business Opportunities and Ideas: notes

Needs and Gaps

• Need: something people must have to live, such as food and water.
• Want: something people would like but can live without, such as a new phone.
• Gap in the market: a need that nobody serves well. If a village has no shop selling bread, a bakery fills the gap.

Finding and Testing Ideas

• Sources of ideas: hobbies, skills, customer complaints, things seen in other towns, and problems at home.
• Screening: checking each idea against your money, skills and local demand, then dropping weak ones.
• Feasibility: whether the idea can really work. Can you afford the start-up costs? Will enough people buy?
• Market research: finding out what customers want. Methods: questionnaires, interviews, observation and counting passers-by at a site.

SWOT Analysis

• Strengths and weaknesses: inside the business. A strength is a good location; a weakness is little capital.
• Opportunities and threats: outside the business. An opportunity is a new housing estate nearby; a threat is a new competitor.

Opportunity Cost

• Opportunity cost: the next best choice you give up. Spending $200 on a sewing machine means you cannot buy the $200 freezer.