Forming an Opportunity Belief
1
What is the unmet need? Motivation/Guidance/knowledge
2
Who has the need? Most college students/Low
income employees
3
Where did the need come from? School system?
(Potentially)
4
What are people doing to meet this need now? Motivational
speakers?
Interviewee #1
Aspiring Entrepreneur Jake
After talking to Jake for around 15 minutes
and asking him a series of questions regarding his aspirations to own his own
business, it became apparent that he has little knowledge regarding
entrepreneurship and even less motivation to learn. He seemed careless about
how he’d start his business or what his business would sell. Never had he
thought about reading a book about business or anything related to the matter. He
needs knowledge on how to build a business and showed no signs of actively
looking to obtain said knowledge. I put him on to some books such as Think and Grow Rich among others and I
believe he will trend in a better direction than he previously would have.
None of this was surprising, most college
students do not read outside of school. I only started reading about a year ago
and it has changed my life. I hope it changes his.
Interviewee #2
Minimum Wage Worker Jackson
Jackson works for a fish market and is
essentially a janitor. Every time I see him he – which is often – he smells
like fish. He works 4 days and cleans fish guts for a little more than eight
dollars an hour. When I talked to him I asked him how his current job would
help him towards entering his desired career of being a lawyer. He had no
answer for this, his sole reason was he wanted some extra cash. I later asked
him what skills he was gaining from the work, he couldn’t name any. He chose
this job because it was the first one he saw was hiring. I asked him why not
work at a call center, or do sales, or anything else besides what he is doing,
his answer was he never thought of getting a different job.
Jackson knew it would be easy to get a job
at the fish market and didn’t want to spend extra time looking for a superior
job. He wanted immediate gratification and suffers for it now. He has been
looking for more, better opportunities now, however.
Interviewee #3
My dad – an entrepreneur
While my dad does not need any motivation
or guidance, I wanted to see and question how he gained his success. I asked
him which books he read and which ones have helped him the most. He said his
number one read is How to Win Friends and
Influence People. I sort of already knew this and have actually read the
book before. I asked him what changed in his life that made him want to own
golf courses. He said he was a PGA pro for years and loved his job, he just didn’t
like working 50 hours a week so he saved up money for years and got a loan from
the bank and purchased his first course, while also quitting his last job. He
said he wanted to be his own boss and after years in the golf business he knew
how to run a course and had the previous owner of his course mentor him for
years so he could mirror and surpass his success. I asked him what the biggest
key to being a successful entrepreneur, especially in the golf business and he
replied that being a good listener to customers and building their loyalty and
trust has been the most important thing for him.
My dad has always been my biggest source of
inspiration and the way he was able to build up his businesses has always
motivated me to better myself. His late start to entrepreneurship also shows
that Jake (my first interviewee) is not behind at this point in his life by too
much and he surely can still do great things even if he doesn’t start for a
while. Also, immediate gratification is a problem for my generation, my dad
thinks so too. He learned early in owning a business that you have to work with
the end in mind, he would rather suffer for a year and prosper for years to
come than live an “eh” life with a nice car or watch.
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