Learning Outcomes Addressed
- Examine the importance of entrepreneurial ecosystems and innovation clusters to healthy society and economies. LO2
- Explain how to differentiate between an idea and a viable opportunity. LO4
Introduction
The Opportunity Analysis Project (OAP) allows students to leverage the many tools that they have learned so far in the course. By Session 11A/11B, study teams will develop a 3-page “story” and narrative regarding the OAP. During this session, student team should pick an idea and use the time in class to determine whether or not their idea is a true opportunity that can be turned into a scalable enterprise. You will make a presentation to your peers and develop a corresponding written report on your analysis and learning from contacting users, customers, and partners.
We recommend five basic steps in the process of analyzing an opportunity:
- Identify potential opportunities. Combine your own personal experiences and creativity with external forecasts and trend analysis. How is the world changing with respect to new technologies? What is the impact of globalization on current solutions? What new requirements will those changes produce? Recent media articles on trends are often a good place to start.
- Define your purpose and objectives. Identify your most promising opportunity, being careful to discriminate between an interesting technological idea and a viable market opportunity. Prepare an outline which will help you to determine what types of data and information you need to demonstrate the attractiveness of your chosen opportunity.
- Gather data from primary sources. It is crucial for you to obtain data from primary sources. Potential investors will place more trust in well conducted primary research than in stacks of data from secondary sources. There is simply no substitute for talking to potential customers from the target market in order to validate the opportunity you have identified. Consequently, we prefer that you spend time gathering data from primary, not just secondary, sources. Past teams have found Survey Monkey to be helpful in gathering primary data. The basic service is free and provides most of the features you’ll need. Visit Survey Monkey at www.surveymonkey.com
- Gather data from secondary sources. Countless secondary sources exist on the web and in various library resources. Try not to get too bogged down in financial and accounting data.
- Analyze and interpret the results. Persuasively summarize your results. A key success factor for a successful project is the depth of your analysis and what you learned from it. If, after careful research, you have determined that your business idea is not as promising as you originally thought, it is acceptable to present an OAP that describes why your idea will not make sense now rather than why it is the next big thing. An honest, rigorous analysis of an idea that did not survive further scrutiny is preferable to either (a) a half-baked presentation of an idea your team is unsure of, or (b) an enthusiastic job of over selling your current idea, even though you know it is problematic.
Part A: Written Report – Worth 100 marks
Students should use the skills, knowledge, tools and techniques gained in the course (in weeks 1 – 11) to prepare a report on their innovative concept. The report must include the following sections:
- Concept and Visions (10%)
Identify your theme and briefly describe a specific issue (problem or area for improvement) linked to this theme. Describe a product, service, or process linked to this issue that you would like to innovate, outlines a brief description of limitations to current specification, functions, uses, and benefits if improving an existing product/service. - Generating Knowledge and Awareness (10%)
Relate how you became aware of this issue and how you increased your knowledge of this issue. Test your (OAP) idea by talking to at least ten potential users, customers, and partners, document these discussions, and share what you learned. - Generating Ideas (10%)
In formulating your creative and innovative concept, apply at least two of the Tools & Techniques to actively generate ideas (Brainstorming, Analogy, Attribute Analysis, Gap Analysis, and Why-Why-Why Analysis). Present your findings and outputs from this activity (in an appendix if necessary) and analyse these findings and outputs in the body of the report. - Approach to Innovation (10%)
Based on the idea generation outputs and findings, develop a proposal for how you would like to innovate the product, service, or process. Detail which aspects of the product, service, or process you propose to change and why. (Specify the ‘Type of Innovation’; add images, sketches, diagrams, or graphs to illustrate your point). Describe how your proposed innovation would change the application (function / benefit / uses / users, etc.) of the product, service, or process. - Limitations (10%)
Classify and rate at least three potential risks or limitations to the implementation of your innovative concept. - Market Analysis. (10%)
What industry or sector of the economy are you addressing? Why is this market attractive? What segment of the overall market are you pursuing? What market research can be done to describe this market need? What are the total industry or category sales over the past three years? What is the anticipated growth for this industry? If this is a new market, what is the best analogous market data that illustrates the opportunity? Project the potential market size and growth for your opportunity. - Customers and Customer Development. (10%)
This is extremely important. You need to have a clear idea of who your target customer is. The only way for you to be able to do this is to “get out of the building” and speak with your potential customers. You will need to answer questions such as: What does the customer need? Why does the customer need it? What is the customer using today? What is the customer willing to pay for your solution? Why? How will you reach this customer? You should include both primary (or first-hand) research and secondary research, emphasizing primary over secondary. - Competition and Positioning. (10%)
Who else serves this customer need? Who might attempt to serve this market in the future? What advantages and weaknesses do these competitors and would-be competitors have? What share of the market do specific competitors serve? Are the major competitors’ sales growing, declining, or steady? What are the barriers to entry for you? What are the barriers to entry for additional competitors? How could partners and allies best help you overcome competition from established enterprises or other startups? - Business Model and Lean Startup Philosophy. (10%)
Now that you have discovered an opportunity and talked to potential customers, how will you turn it into a business? How will you make money and when do you expect your venture to be profitable? What is the major risk to address right away (e.g., market or technical)? In other words, which hypothesis regarding product or market strategies needs to be tested right away? - Learning and Adaptation (10%)
What did you learn between the time you chose the idea and wrote the first draft of the report and producing the final written report? Is this idea a true opportunity or not?