Chapter 7: Turning Ideas into Opportunities

Opra Winfrey is a commonly known TV persona who found a very profitable niche within television and has now become one of the top billionaires.

For the chapter seven blog posts we covered recognizing ideas and opportunities, how to find opportunities from internal and external sources, the varying pros and cons of creation, purchasing of a business or franchising. 

In entrepreneurship one has varying ideas and opportunities for creating or purchasing a new business. But there is a differentiation factor which is the fact that an idea is simply something that could be marketable and useful. But an opportunity is something that is actually in demand and geographically when selling actually makes logical sense.  

But how do you actually come up with an idea? Well this can vary, some ideas could come internally by observing your hobbies, interest, and talents to see if you find an opportunity that could be profitable. But this also differs because you can also look outwards towards problems, changes, discoveries or unique knowledge that can once again actually be profitable. 

But how do you choose whether to create, purchase a new business or franchise? When creating your business it usually doesn't need a substantial amount of money to startup. When you create your business you also have a ton of freedom as to what you do but with this also comes a substantial amount of work that will need to be covered by you as you don't have a team. Now purchasing a business is the safer option as usually you have just as much freedom and there are preset processes in the business to make the business easier to run, but with this comes a pretty hefty price tag. At last franchising is the one that provides you with the best odds but also limits the amount of freedom you have as an entrepreneur and also a substantial amount of start-up capital.

After reading this chapter I reflected further on the risk that comes with each option for becoming an entrepreneur and realized that every option really comes all with its cost and it's dependent entirely on the amount of risk you're able to handle and also your personal values. For me starting something new and having to take on less financial risk is best fit for me so creating a new business is my pick. But when actually coming up with an idea for your business for me, thinking outwards seems to work best for me. I personally feel that I can best find the needs of others and so I would like to either work on a business that works on filling in basic needs for consumers or other businesses.