Seizing opportunity
A computer science student wrote to me: “People tell me that to be an entrepreneur, I need to have good technical background to invent new things but to start a company, I need to have business background to innovate. I am confused about invention and innovation terms. I want to start my own company after graduate as my hero is Steve Jobs. Please help.”
Answer: There is a difference between invention and innovation. Invention is the creation of a new product or technology. Innovation is the creation of a new market, a new value from existing products. To be an entrepreneur is to recognize an opportunity when it comes and ready to seize it.
Your hero, Steve Jobs is NOT an inventor but an innovator. He did not invent anything but created new value, new market and new technology industry from existing products and technologies. When he saw the “Mouse technology” at Xerox, he knew what to do and seized that opportunity immediately. Xerox invented this technology but did not know what to do with it. A Xerox manager later told the newspapers: “We are in the copy machine business so it has nothing to do with the Mouse.” It was Jobs who created the first Mac computer using the Mouse and it became part of many personal computers today. Twenty five years ago, Sonny invented the portable music device (Sony Walkman) and few years later a Microsoft engineer invented the MP3 technology but Sony did not pay attention to this new technology and Microsoft was not in music business. It was Steve Jobs who seized the opportunity and integrated both technologies into the iPod and changed the music industry forever. As an Innovator, Steve Jobs combined these technologies into a beautiful design with easy to use function to connect iPod to a website (iTunes) that updated it with millions of songs. Later he integrated mobile technology and computer technology then combined it with the iPod to create the iPhone etc.
Many people believe entrepreneur is someone who has good idea. The fact is anybody can come up with ideas but idea alone does NOT make money. You need to find customers who are willing to pay for your idea and having paying customers is the first step in starting your company. To find customers you must think about their needs, their problems, their issues and what they want to solve and by solving them, you will have customers. Therefore, the idea must be based on solving problems or fulfill a need to get customers. By understand these fundamentals, you will have the opportunity to create a startup business and achieve your dream.
Google began as one of several search engines (There were 12 search engines at that time) the idea of create a search engine is not new but what Google did was brilliant. Google knew that other companies charged money to use their search engine so it allowed people to use their search engine without paying anything. When more people were using its search engine, it charged advertisers to display their ads there. Because Google has hundred millions of users, companies are willing to pay to put advertising in Google website. That is how Google make money.
For thousands of year, product was always a physical thing such as food, books, cars, houses, planes etc. but today many products are no longer in physical form but in abstract form such as software. When combine it with hardware (Computer, phone etc.) it became a new thing that can be sold quickly and cheaply and opens new opportunity for many people who create mobile applications, computer games, entertainment and enterprise applications etc. With the Internet, there are so many new opportunities that never exist before. All you need is to identify new opportunity, new value, new way to solve problem using existing technologies and by innovation, you can start your own company and achieve your dream.