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DEVELOPING NEW BUSINESS IDEAS68

          increasing the chances of success But you must persevere

             with this opportunity-shaping step because investment in time and
             resource now increases the chances of successful implementation.
             Further, if you have to recycle back to this step, you will already have
             generated considerable background information and insight which you
             can revisit in order to generate alternative definitions of the
             opportunity.

             Lack of clear definition of the intended business opportunity is one of
             the biggest reasons for business failure. The techniques outlined later in
             this chapter will help you improve your opportunity-seeking and
             shaping skills and improve your ability to develop a degree of
             remoteness from your initial definition of the business idea.

lack of clear definition of the intended
business opportunity is one of the biggest
reasons for business failure

             The outcome of this first step will be a single high-powered definition
             of the market opportunity, or at most several, to which the idea
             generation techniques described in the next chapter can be fruitfully
             applied.

         total immersion in the market The important factor at

             this step is to become totally immersed in the market, unearthing
             aspects which you had not previously considered, challenging all your
             assumptions and using information to generate further ideas about
             which you gather more information and insight. This immersion, using
             creative as well as analytical techniques, will help you develop a
             variety of perspectives on the market and the opportunities which it
             presents.

             The problem or opportunity as you first perceive it may not resemble
             the problem as you finally perceive it. You need to open up your mind
             to as many potentially relevant facts and insights as you can so that you
             can improve the final perception. Time invested now is time well spent.
             As the President of Harvard Business School is reported to have once
             said: ‘If you thought that knowledge was expensive, you should try
             ignorance.’
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