Jeremiah Yancy is talking about the power of entrepreneurial thinking. The path to success lies in evolution, whether it is the evolution of ideas, services and products or technology. An entrepreneur should have an open mind and eagerness to learn new things.

1. The Power of
Entrepreneurial Thinking
Jeremiah Yancy

2. Successful Entrepreneurs
 Passion for the business
 Vision and endless ideas
 Product/customer focus:
Must satisfy customer needs
 Persevere through setbacks and failures
 Executional excellence: Translate creativity into
action & generate measurable returns

3. Successful Entrepreneurs

4. The Power of
Entrepreneurial Thinking
 What makes a successful entrepreneur?
– Seeing opportunity where others don’t
– Innovation: better, faster, cheaper, easier
– “Fire in the Belly”
– Willingness to take risks
– Extreme work ethic

5. Increasing Relevance to Founding Venture
Three Key Processes
Idea
Generation Creativity
Opportunity
Recognition

6. Kinds of Intelligence
 Analytic intelligence - The ability to analyze and evaluate
ideas, solve problems and make decisions
 Creative intelligence - Going beyond what is given to
generate novel and interesting ideas.
 Practical intelligence - The ability that individuals use to
find the best fit between themselves and the demands of the
environment
 Social intelligence - The ability to understand and manage
all types of people and to act wisely in human relations
 Successful intelligence - The acquisition and use of what
you need to know to be successful in a particular environment.

7. Practical
Intelligence
Creative
Intelligence
Analytic
Intelligence Success
Successful
Intelligence
Successful Intelligence

8. Confluence Approach
Creativity emerges from a confluence of
 Intellectual abilities
 Broad, rich knowledge base
 Appropriate style of thinking
 Personality attributes
 Intrinsic, task-focused motivation
 Environment supportive of creative ideas

9. Additional Aspects
Active search
Entrepreneurial
alertness
Prior knowledge
Social networks
Opportunity
recognition

10. Pattern Recognition
 Seeing links between seemingly
unconnected trends, changes, events
 Connections form an identifiable
pattern

11. Entrepreneurial Opportunity
 Situation in which a person can develop a
new business idea that has potential to
generate profit

12. Opportunities from Change
Truly valuable entrepreneurial opportunities
come from an external change that
 Makes it possible to do things that had not been
done before
 Makes it possible to do something in a more
valuable way.

13. Change Leads to Potential
 New technology
 Political and regulatory changes
 Social and demographic change
Potential

14. Forms of Opportunity
Entrepreneurs develop business ideas by:
 Developing new products and services
 Tapping new markets
 Formulating new methods of production
 Identifying new raw materials
 Developing new ways of organizing processes

15. Generating Business Ideas
 Idea is thought, impression, notion
 Opportunity: favorable set of circumstances that
create need for product or service e.g. DTH, GPS
 Opportunity has four essential qualities
 Attractive
 Durable
 Timely
 Creates/adds value for buyer/user

16. Recognizing Opportunities
& Generating Ideas
 Observing/ Study Trends
• Economic factors
• Social factors
• Technological Advances
• Political Action and regulatory statutes

17. Recognizing Opportunities
& Generating Ideas
 Economic Forces
– Consumers level of disposable income
– Interest rate changes
– More women in workforce
– Currently: global recession
 Social Forces
– Both parents working: fast food
– Life stress: spas, wellness clinics , yoga,
spiritualism

18. Recognizing Opportunities
& Generating Ideas
 Family & work patterns
 Age of the population
 Increasing diversity in the workplace
 Globalization of industries
 Increased focus in health care & fitness
 Proliferation of computers & Internet
 Increase in numbers of cell phone users
 New forms of music & entertainment

19. Recognizing Opportunities
& Generating Ideas
 Technological Advances
– Cell phones: allows people to be mobile
– E-commerce: accommodates busy schedules and working
from home/remote locations
 Political Action
– New laws:
– Terrorism: Products & services to protect

20. Recognizing Opportunities
& Generating Ideas
Solving a Problem
 Observe people’s challenges
 Look for problems
 Listen to people’s complaints
 Think of your own challenges

21. Recognizing Opportunities
& Generating Ideas
 Personal characteristics for opportunity
recognition
 Entrepreneurial alertness/6th sense
 Social networks
 Creativity: preparation, insight, evaluation
 Prior experience in an industry

22. Techniques in Generating Ideas
 Brainstorming: generate ideas quickly, no
analysis or decision making
– Enthusiasm, originality, lots of ideas
– Freewheeling, lively
– No criticism allowed
– Session moves quickly
– Leapfrogging encouraged

23. Techniques in Generating Ideas
 Focus groups
• People selected are familiar with issues
• What’s on customers mind
• Conducted by trained moderator
• Success depends on moderator’s ability to ask
questions and keep on track

24. Techniques in Generating Ideas
 Surveys: gathering info from sample
of individuals
• By phone, mail, online, in person
• Random portions of population
• Customer Advisory Boards