Finding Fertile Ground: Identifying Extraordinary Opportunities for New Ventures

Table of contents

1. Finding Fertile Ground
   1. Acknowledgments
   2. Introduction
      1. The Purpose of This Book
      2. What I Mean by Technology
      3. How This Book is Different from Other Books
      4. What This Book Does Not Do
      5. Who Should Read this Book and When Should They Read It?
      6. The Sources of Knowledge Underlying the Book
      7. The Key Lessons
      8. An Overview of the Chapters
   3. 1. Selecting the Right Industry
      1. Looking at the Evidence
      2. Knowledge Conditions
      3. Demand Conditions
      4. Industry Life Cycles
      5. Industry Structure
      6. Summary
   4. 2. Identifying Valuable Opportunities
      1. Sources of Opportunities
      2. Technological Change
      3. Political and Regulatory Change
      4. Social and Demographic Change
      5. Changes in Industry Structure
      6. Forms of Opportunity: Beyond New Products or Services
      7. Types of Opportunities and the Relationship to Types of Innovation
      8. Locus of Innovation
      9. Recognizing a Valuable Opportunity
      10. Access to Information
      11. Better Information Processing
      12. Summary
   5. 3. Managing Technological Evolution
      1. Evolutionary Patterns of Development
      2. Projecting Foster’s S-Curves
      3. The Role of Dominant Designs
      4. Understanding Technical Standards
      5. Evolution in Increasing Returns Businesses
      6. Summary
   6. 4. Identifying and Satisfying Real Market Needs
      1. Identifying a Real Need
      2. Meeting a Real Need
      3. Gathering Information about Customer Preferences
      4. Why This Approach to Market Research Is Important to Entrepreneurs
      5. Absolute Necessities, Nice to Haves, and Things That Are Unnecessary
      6. Figuring Out an Economical Solution
      7. Offering Better Alternatives Than the Competition
      8. Understanding the Marketing and Selling Processes
         1. The Importance of Personal Selling
         2. Pricing New Products
      9. Summary
   7. 5. Understanding Customer Adoption
      1. Nature of Adopters
         1. Projecting Customer Adoption
         2. Capturing the Majority of the Market
         3. Selecting the Right Customers
      2. Understanding Market Dynamics
         1. The Trap of Static Estimates
         2. Diffusion and Substitution Patterns
      3. Summary
   8. 6. Exploiting Established Company Weaknesses
      1. Why Established Companies Win Most of the Time
         1. The Learning Curve
         2. Reputation Effects
         3. Cash Flow
         4. Scale Economies
         5. Complementary Assets
      2. Established Company Weaknesses That New Firms Can Exploit
         1. The Focus on Efficiency
         2. The Exploitation of Existing Capabilities
         3. The Need to Satisfy Existing Customers
         4. The Constraints of Existing Organizational Structure
         5. The Need to Reward People for Doing Their Jobs
         6. The Difficulty of Product Development in a Bureaucracy
      3. Opportunities That Favor New Firms
         1. Discreteness
         2. Human Capital Intensity
         3. General Purpose
         4. Uncertainty
      4. Summary
   9. 7. Managing Intellectual Property
      1. Copying Is Easy—And Harmful!
      2. Secrecy
         1. When Does Secrecy Work?
         2. Trade Secrets
      3. Patenting
      4. Summary
   10. 8. Appropriating the Returns to Innovation
       1. Obtaining Control over Resources
       2. Establishing a Reputation
       3. Learning Curves
       4. First Mover Advantage
       5. Complementary Assets
       6. Summary
   11. 9. Choosing the Right Organizational Form
       1. Cost of Exploitation
       2. Accelerating the Pace to Market
       3. Making Use of the Best Capabilities
       4. Nature of the Technology
       5. Managing Information Problems in Organizing
       6. Summary
   12. 10. Managing Risk and Uncertainty
       1. The Start-up Problem
       2. Risk Reduction Strategies
          1. Searching for Information
          2. Minimizing Investment
          3. Maintaining Flexibility
       3. Risk Reallocation Strategies
       4. Risk Perception Strategies
       5. Tools for Managing Risk and Uncertainty
       6. How Do Entrepreneurs Convince Stakeholders to Bear Risk?
       7. Summary
   13. Conclusions
       1. A Final Comment
   14. Notes
       1. Introduction
       2. Chapter 1
       3. Chapter 2
       4. Chapter 3
       5. Chapter 4
       6. Chapter 5
       7. Chapter 6
       8. Chapter 7
       9. Chapter 8
       10. Chapter 9
       11. Chapter 10
   15. List of Acknowledgments for Tables and Figures
   16. About the Audio CD
       1. Book Summary
       2. Author Interview
       3. Limited Warranty
       4. Technical Support