Finding Fertile Ground: Identifying Extraordinary Opportunities for New Ventures (paperback): Identifying Extraordinary Opportunities for New Ventures PAP/CDR Edition

Great resource on defining where opportunities could be found, what's more, how to exploit them in an effective way either. I recommend this book for everyone looking for a way to figure out which field of business ones should get into. Great book, probably the best, on the topic on its cover.

If you want to start a business, this is a great read. It helps a lot with choosing a venture, but is very repetitive. Fortunately, each chapter contains a short summary, which is helpful for getting the gist of the book.

Explain topics about the methodology to find fertile ground, comparing new player with old players attitudes.Read first this book before reading Business Model Generation.

I ordered this book with great anticipation, more anticipation than it deserves: this book is full of useless platitudes like pick the right market; do your home work; zero in on customer needs. This tripe is the mantra of the business press, not the distilled wisdom of how to spot or identify extraordinary opportunities for new ventures.To me, this book looks at the traits that "successful" ventures seem to exhibit and then assumes that the success is due to the traits; it seems that the author is affirming the consequent without proving that the success is due more to the selected traits than to randomness. My question to the author is this: how many ventures within a given cohort failed yet had the very same traits that he says "causes" these survivors to be successful? Until we know the answer to that question, it seems to me that this book has little to offer in identifying any real opportunity,let alone extraordinary ones.

Great information for those looking to open a business. Tons of questions to help decide when/where/what and what the likely hood of success is.

“Obviously, something separates successful entrepreneurs from the masses who try their hand at this activity every year. This book identifies the key differences between the successes and the masses – the selection of the right business concept to exploit a valuable opportunity. The central goal of this book is to provide you, as a potential or actual technology entrepreneur, with the tools necessary to identify the right business concept to exploit a valuable opportunity when you establish your business. Of course, the information provided in this book will not guarantee you success in a high-technology entrepreneurship. Much in the same way as having the right form for a jump shot will not guarantee that a basketball player will earn $20 million per year in the NBA, understanding what makes a business a good one for an entrepreneur to start will not guarantee that you, as an entrepreneur, will take a start-up public, replace the leading companies in an industry, or even to profitable. However, understanding the information in this book, and following the rules that it outlines, will dramatically increase the probability of a successful outcome (from the Introduction).”In this context, Dr. Scott A. Shane divides this excellent study on entrepreneurship into ten chapters as the ten rules of technology entrepreneurship. He defines main idea behind the chapters with the following sentences:• Chapter 1. Selecting the Right Industry: This chapter focuses on identifying the attributes that make an industry favorable to new firms. The first section provides empirical evidence of the differences in the favorability of different industries to new firms. The subsequent sections each review different dimensions of industry differences that influence the performance of new firms: knowledge conditions, demand conditions, industry life cycles, and industry structure.• Chapter 2. Identifying Valuable Opportunities: To be successful, you need to start your new business in response to an opportunity to create a new product or service that meets customer needs that have not been satisfied adequately, or that satisfies customer needs in a much better way than established companies satisfy them. So, where do these opportunities come from? What form do they take? How do successful entrepreneurs match opportunities to innovation? How do successful entrepreneurs identify these opportunities? This chapter answers these questions.• Chapter 3. Managing Technological Evolution: This chapter focuses on explaining several key characteristics of managing the process of technological evolution. The chapter:- Explains why technologies follow evolutionary patterns that open up discrete points of transition that are valuable for entrepreneurs to exploit- Describes the S-shaped pattern of technological development and the implications of this pattern for technology entrepreneurs- Discusses the role of dominant designs and explains how these designs influence competition by entrepreneurial ventures- Describes technical standards and how entrepreneurs can use strategic action to focus them around their products and services- Explores increasing returns businesses, explaining both why increasing returns businesses exist, and how entrepreneurs should approach those industries to be successful• Chapter 4. Identifying and Satisfying Real Market Needs: It explains how successful entrepreneurs go about identifying customer needs for high technology products and services in ways that go beyond the traditional market research methods of surveys and focus groups. The chapter provides insight into why and how the advantages of successful new firms lie in product development rather than in manufacturing or marketing. Finally, the chapter explains how successful technology entrepreneurs identify the key decision makers in purchasing decisions, as well as how these entrepreneurs price their new products and services to make them attractive to these decision makers.• Chapter 5. Understanding Customer Adoption: This chapter focuses on some requirements that you need to meet if you are interested in securing customer adoption of your new products and services. You need to understand the likely distribution of adopters of their products and services to target their customer base effectively. You need to follow particular strategies to transition from innovators to the majority of the market. You need to select the right segment of the market on which to focus to transition to the majority of the market. You need to assess the size and growth rate of the markets that you are entering. You need to pay attention to the factors that affect the rate of influence diffusion and substitution of new technology products and services.• Chapter 6. Exploiting Established Company Weaknesses: This chapter identifies the specific weaknesses of established companies, and explains how you can go about exploiting them.• Chapter 7. Managing Intellectual Property: This chapter:- Discusses basic ideas behind appropriating the returns to innovation- Explains why it is so easy for established firms to imitate the entrepreneurs’ new products and services, laying the groundwork for understanding why it is important to develop a plan for deterring imitation- Discusses one of the most important parts of a plan for deterring imitation – the management of secrecy- Discusses another important part of a plan for deterring imitation – the use of patents as a legal barrier to imitation• Chapter 8. Appropriating the Returns to Innovation: This chapter discusses several ways to capture the returns to introducing new products and services, including obtaining control over resources, establishing a reputation, exploiting learning curves, becoming a first mover, and exploiting complementary assets in manufacturing, marketing, and distribution. Each of the sections discusses the conditions under which one of these approaches is effective.• Chapter 9. Choosing the Right Organizational Form: This chapter explains when you are best off owning the various parts of the value chain, such as product development, manufacturing, and distribution, and when you are best off using market-based mechanisms, such as licensing, franchising, and strategic alliances, to control them.• Chapter 10. Managing Risk and Uncertainty: This chapter:- Explains how successful entrepreneurs manage uncertainty in the process of developing new technology companies- Describes the problems that uncertainty imposes on new technology companies- Explains why you must either reduce uncertainty or give shareholders a greater portion of returns as a way to manage the start-up problem- Discusses the risk reduction strategies that you should employ- Talks about the approaches you can use to reallocate risk to those better able to bear it- Discusses the strategies that you can use to manage perceptions of risk- Identifies two tools that you can use to manage risk: real options and scenario analysis- Explains how you can convince stakeholders to bear risk for youStrongly recommended

Well if you have the guts to start a new business then this author makes the case that high tech is the field to be in. Forget fast food franchises, dry cleaners or video stores, the more knowledge intensive the better. To back this claim up the author gives you the highlights of the last 20 years in America and points to facts that would lead one to believe the economy is doing very well thank you. To put some reality into the conversation he does detail out the very difficult task it is to start a business and make it successful, as a matter of fact the odds are so long it would convince all but the most confident to stay put in the 9 to 5 grind.So the author tries to identify the keys to what makes people successful entrepreneurs. He helps the reader determine the right business concept to exploit within the high tech arena. Even though he details out that it is a very tough road to make a successful business, he gives the reader enough sound advice and basic business strategy that it makes even a cautious fellow like myself believe I could do it. Overall I found the book interesting and easy to read. I am a bit too much of a doubting Thomas to try it myself, but if you are looking to venture out on your own I think this book would pay for itself many times over.

There is very little in this book that is not obvious.Essentially the book is a list of don't. Don't make a product unless people are willing to buy it. Don't create a business without a real need. Products don't sell themselves, etc.Unfortunately the author gives little guidance on how to determine if your idea fits into any of his don't. Essentially you are not given the tools you need. If you get it wrong he can say "Well you did not figure out what the customers wanted". True but useless.There are a couple of things mentioned that may not be obvious to most readers. The impact of technical standards is one example.I doubt this book will help many people.