Forming an Opportunity Belief: A Twist on Opportunity Identification

1) Your beginning point. Do you have a belief, supposition, or feeling that an opportunity exists? This belief may have come from your completion of prior exercises. Only select one belief. 

I definitely believe that there is always an opportunity that exists. A specific belief that I have where an opportunity exists is a blanket that can have a maximum temperature. 

2) Describe your belief. Be sure to include a few things. First, what is the unmet need? Second, who has the need? Third, where did the need come from (is it new, or has it always existed)? Four, what are people doing to meet this need now? (These four elements are important -- we'll come back to these.) At this point, how sure are you (say, in percent terms) that this opportunity exists?

The belief I have is that there is a need for blankets that have a controlled temperature. I believe that blankets can get too hot and overheat people at some moments, therefore having a controlled blanket would solve an unmet problem many people face. The unmet need currently is being at a comfortable temperature for an extended amount of time. Any person that is taking a break in their house. The need has always existed, but there are many people who have just gotten used to this problem. People are constantly adjusting themselves and other devices to ensure that they can be at a comfortable temperature. This opportunity exists in my opinion, as personal experience and interaction with others has shown that this is a common problem. I would say that I am 60% confident that this unmet need exists. 

3) Identify the prototypical customer. 

My prototypical customers consist of: a person who works at home, a person who works in an environment where they cannot control the temperature, and a person who is taking a nap.

4&5&6) Iteration & Reflect. What did you learn about your opportunity? What was the most surprising thing you learned about your opportunity? (You may reflect after each iteration or you may simply include a single reflection that captures all three iterations.)

My opportunity seems like a common problem that continuously happens but people just get used to living with the annoyance. I learned that people have different solutions, whether it be to just give up and deal with the cold or hot temperature or just continuously be playing with the fan and their blanket. The work at home person can sometimes get cold in their house and therefore will go get a blanket, but then will be hot and have to be constantly moving around. This environment for the work at home person prevents them from optimizing their work flow and therefore is a problem. Something else I learned about this opportunity is that it could help those that have trouble sleeping. There are moments when people fall asleep with their blanket and end up waking up in a pool of sweat and all uncomfortable, having a blanket that will not go over a specific temperature can help prevent this. The most surprising thing I learned about the opportunity I found is that there are medical blankets that can cool people off.  I think this discovery is amazing information as it displays how it is possible to make a similar blanket geared towards the market I am interested in helping. 

7) Summarize. It's very likely that your opportunity belief changed between the outset and as a consequence of your customer interactions. Three questions:

How much of your original opportunity is still there?

I think the only reason my opportunity would decrease is because of people being used to the problem, but I believe a good portion of my original opportunity is still there. It may be hard to sell the blanket as people have gotten accustomed to this problem, but if a sense of need is created for these blankets to stop this small annoyance then there is a possibility the opportunity

Do you believe that your new opportunity is more accurate than when you started?

I believe that my new opportunity is more in depth, as I have knowledge of how the medical community uses blankets to get a colder body. With this knowledge, I believe that the new opportunity I have is more accurate than how I started as it has more research backing it up. 

How much do you think entrepreneurs should 'adapt' their opportunities based on customer feedback? (In other words, is there a trade-off between adapting and staying firm?)

I believe that entrepreneurs should adapt to what their customers want. If a large portion of customers support for you to adapt, then it would be wise to change your own product to be able to meet the customer's needs. There is a certain extent where adapting may hurt though, as it can make the product cost significantly more on the producer side and therefore making it unaffordable. Therefore, it would be wise to have a middle ground where you are willing to adapt, but know when to stand firm.