Entre 370: Opportunity Analysis Project

The learning model for the course largely emphasizes learning by doing. While the
readings and in-class discussions will provide raw material for building your opportunity
discovery skills, much of the learning will come through the ambiguous and uncertain
challenges you will tackle in your group project for this course. I will ask you to study
individuals who make-up a market of your choice with the goal of identifying underlying
needs and using the toolbox of skills I will provide to discover accompanying opportunities
for innovation.
Throughout the course, you and your team will work together to identify a real and credible
unmet need, a superior solution to the unmet need, and a plan for further testing the
problem and solution.
The project will consist of three stages. First your team will conduct an Opportunity Analysis
as described in this document. This stage of the project consists of three goals: (1)
identifying and understanding an unmet need in a market of your choice, (2)
conceptualizing a solution to the need you identified, and (3) evaluate the solution and the
unmet need to the extent possible without launching the venture or prototyping the
product. In other words, the opportunity analysis project aims to simulate the initial phases
of the entrepreneurial process, including both the development of an idea and its
preliminary (pre-market) analysis.
After completing the opportunity analysis project, your team will complete the second stage
of the project, a Crowdfunding Campaign. Without launching an actual campaign, you will
begin to think more about your proposed idea and how to gain traction with an external
market. Your team will create a two- to three-minute video to showcase your idea and build
a community of external supporters. I do not expect you to feature a working prototype of
your idea in the video. You will also submit a two-page write-up of how you would describe
the idea to the public on a crowdfunding platform.
Finally, your team will engage in the third stage of the project which will take the form of
the Opportunity Execution Plan.

Guidance for Discovering an Opportunity

The first sessions of the course will introduce you to a variety of different approaches to
finding opportunities. Session 1 focuses on the nature of entrepreneurial opportunities, and
introduces the process of how successful entrepreneurs think. Sessions 3 and 4 delve
further into what it means to address an unmet need by introducing the tools of structured
observation and long interviews, tools which we increasingly refer to as components of
Design Thinking.
Of these frameworks, I highly recommend using the purposeful discovery approaches of
observation and interviews as introduced in Sessions 3 and 4. Rather than starting with a
business idea, instead select an existing or rapidly growing market, and then use the
introduced tools to find an unmet need. Then allow your research on the unmet need to
drive your solution. In my experience, I believe starting with a disciplined and thorough
understanding of an unmet need consistently helps teams find more interesting and credible
opportunities.

The Scope of the Opportunity Analysis Project

Your Opportunity Analysis Project should articulate an unmet need, identify a credible and
superior solution to the need, and begin to analyze the attractiveness of the opportunity
using the DWI framework discussed in Session 6 and a combination of primary and
secondary sources. However, you should not develop either a full-fledged business model
(e.g., with the business model canvas) or begin testing the market as described in lean
entrepreneurship; you will complete those exercises as part of your Opportunity Execution
Plan.
Navigating setbacks and unexpected surprises represents a critical component of the
entrepreneurial process. Accordingly, you can make changes to both your opportunity and
solution between your Opportunity Analysis Project and your later Opportunity Execution
Plan. Remember, no business plan survives its first contact with a market.

Suggested Discovery Process

1. Identify markets of interest. Identify markets of interest to the group based on a
combination of team member interests, market growth, and broader social and
technological trends. You may find external forecasts and trend reports produced by
consultancies, think tanks, and design firms helpful. For instance, see
www.frogdesign.com/techtrends2015/ and www.kpcb.com/internettrends.
2. Gather primary data to understand unmet needs in a market. Use class tools
such as Observation and Long Interviews to identify unmet needs in the market.
Beginning with original, primary research will help you better understand needs you
may not anticipate and to more fully understand the purchasing process of potential
buyers. Potential investors will also place more trust in well-conducted primary
research than in stacks of data from secondary sources.
3. Identify a target unmet need and a credible solution. Based on your primary
research, identify an unmet need on which to focus. Your unmet need should be
credible and substantial enough for prospective customers to pay to have it
addressed. Based on your research so far, begin to develop a credible solution
(actually implementable) superior to existing offerings in the market place.
4. Gather additional primary and secondary data to identify a credible and
superior solution. Gather additional primary and secondary research as needed to
better understand the market and the unmet need to propose a solution.
5. Gather data from secondary sources. Countless secondary sources exist on the
web an in UWs various library resources. The Foster Library will happily help answer
any questions on relevant sources. Try not to get too bogged down in financial and
accounting data. At this stage, the primary goal is fleshing out remaining unknowns
relating to the size of the market, relevant trends, and what you can learn from
competitors.

Final Deliverables
You will complete two deliverables for your Opportunity Analysis Project: (1) a written
summary of your project and research, and (2) a brief in-class presentation. I will evaluate
the material from the presentation and the written executive summary as an integrated
whole.
Written OAP
First, you and your team should submit a write-up of no more than four pages (not counting
bibliography or appendices) describing your opportunity and analysis. In essence, this
report should focus on the doable aspect of the DWI framework introduced in class and in
the Bird in Hand handout. Please structure your report as follows:

A one-page executive summary identifying the customer need and describing your
solution.
Three pages describing your target unmet need, the research behind this unmet
need, your solution, and the research behind the credibility of this solution. Show
relevant information from your research to convince the reader you truly found an
unmet need and your solution can solve the customer problem in a way superior to
other ways available. You should include representative quotes or summaries from
your primary/secondary research here. Some guidelines on what to cover here:
o Customers. This represents an important component. You need to possess a
clear idea of your target customer. You can do this by getting out of the
building and speaking with your potential customers. When addressing the
customer, you should include both primary and secondary research, with an
emphasis on primary over secondary. You will need to answer questions such
as:
What does the customer need?
Why does the customer need it?
What, if anything, is the customer using today to address the need?
What is the customer willing to pay for your solution? Why?
How will you reach this customer?
o Industry. You need to project the potential market size and growth for your
opportunity. You will need to answer questions such as:
What industry are you addressing?
Why is this market attractive?
What segment of the overall market are you pursuing?
What market research data can be gathered to describe this market
need?
What are the total industry or category sales over the past three
years?
What is the anticipated growth for the industry?
If this is a new market, what is the best and analogous market data
which illustrates the opportunity?
o Solution.
What is your solution?
What makes your solution particularly compelling?
Has anyone tried something like this before? If so, why did they fail or
succeed, and why is the opportunity still attractive?

If there are existing substitute solutions, why are customer likely to

prefer your solution?
What assumptions are embedded in the viability of the solution, and
why are those assumptions realistic?
Bibliography You MUST include an extensive bibliography including which sources
(primary and secondary) you consulted. This does not count against your page limit.
Appendix Include summary information for other primary research here. In this
section you can provide a broader set of quotes, or additional supporting data.
Please do not include all individual interviews or all survey responses. The appendix
should not exceed 10 pages (but may be much shorter).

Presentation
You will also pitch your opportunity and proposed solution in five minute to your classmates
and me.
Please Note

For grading I will consider your use and execution of each of the areas listed above,
in addition to your creativity, and the polished final product.
If you would like to use a project you have used in a former class, or plan to use in a
current class other than ENTRE 370, you must first clear it with me.

Due Date
Final OAP Presentations will take place in class on November 4. Write-ups are due the night
before, at 11:59pm on November 3 in Canvas. Please bring one hard copy per team with
you to class as well.