In the wake of the pandemic, new business opportunities have emerged in the market. Staying at home gave birth to novel needs as well as ideas and the remote work model has made it possible for young entrepreneurs to give a shot at their business projects.
In the United States alone, 4.3 million applications have been made to start a new business in 2021 and the areas of expertise span from physiotherapy to smoothie making. Most of these businesses are aimed at bringing something new to people’s daily lives through remotely provided services.
So, in the surge of startups, what can be the new business opportunities for young entrepreneurs? How can they strategize to penetrate the market, or maybe create their own market? Is any idea business worthy?
Let’s find out!
What’s an Opportunity?
In its most basic sense, a business opportunity is a consumer need that must be satisfied in a convenient manner. But to have a clear understanding of it, we need to go a little bit more into the details.
Detecting a consumer need that is not met in the current market conditions does not always equal a business opportunity. For example, in the carbonated beverages market, there’s nothing flavored with kiwi but it doesn’t constitute an opportunity by itself.
For it to turn into an opportunity, there has to be something that it can be associated with. If we go along with the kiwi flavored drink example, you can try to appeal to kiwi’s exotic nature and present it as a fun drink that goes well in the summer.
In other words, to see something as a new business opportunity, you have to make sure that it appeals to what people may need, want, aspire and discover with respect to their life.
How to Penetrate the Market?
There are usually two ways of penetrating the market: You either enter it in the low-end by providing a budget-friendly service without drawing market leaders’ attention or create a new segment in it by providing something completely different.
Either way, it’s not an easy thing to achieve.
Before penetrating the market, you have to have a thorough analysis of whether there’s a good opportunity or not. If you’re assured that there is, now you can start thinking about your strategy.
If you choose to go with the low-end market strategy, you must provide a “good enough” service to your consumers with low cost. The market you’re entering must be of something that is easily replaceable, such as dairy products, and the product or service you’re providing must be of “okay” quality.
The advantage of choosing a low-end market strategy is entering a market that’s already well-established and having a wide consumer base that can easily choose you. So, as long as you satisfy your consumers’ needs on a modest level, you don’t have to worry about being creative to attract them.
But with the low-end market strategy, you also need to be aware that the competition is probably high and it may take a while for consumers to switch to your brand. Therefore, you may wait for a while to harvest.
If you’re aiming at creating a new segment in the market, well congratulations firstly, because it means that you have a creative idea. But it also means that you must provide both creative and quality service to your consumers.
The competition will be very low, almost non-existent, in the segment you’re trying to create; so you can set the rules yourself. But it’ll require intense effort and planning to secure the segment you created and to ensure that you’re actually pulling consumers.
So, depending on the opportunity you saw, you can decide on the market strategy you’d like to go with. Just remember that your market strategy must be in accordance with the service you’re envisioning to provide.
Is Every Idea an Opportunity?
Since we got more time for ourselves as we locked ourselves in the house, we started to generate more ideas. But not every idea is something that you can turn into a business opportunity.
To take advantage of your idea monetarily, it’s necessary that your idea can be sustained for a certain amount of time. Which means that it shouldn’t be a one hit wonder or something that can get old very quickly.
Your idea needs to have room for growth and it must appeal to a continuous consumer need. That way you can establish a customer base for yourself and ensure a certain period of time that your business can continue.
Having room for growth allows your idea to solidify its place as a need and you can create new business opportunities out of it. And this is what makes an idea a business worthy project.
In summary, as much as there are new ideas, you as an entrepreneur need to make sure that your idea is a sustainable one and satisfies a consumer need in a progressing manner. You need to associate your business idea with an aspect of consumers life.
So, if you have a business idea, take a moment to reevaluate and see if it’s truly as business worthy as you thought. Then think of ways of turning it into an opportunity and decide on your market strategy. The rest is a little bit. of luck, and mostly your efforts.
