New Venture Lab: Equipping Christian Entrepreneurs

Idea Generation and Industry Analysis

Question

My family has some investment capital and there are several initiatives that the Lord is placing on our heart  so we are going to pray, read Scripture and think through ideas, information, articles, etc. that are relevant to this topic.  I have listened to your messages you gave at the entrepreneurial bootcamp and have some follow up questions related to this issue.

  • When you are researching an idea...what are a few practical steps you would do to pursue idea creation relative to a certain industry, etc.?
  • Are we being too restrictive when we say that we want to find a business or create a business related to a specific industry?

Any thoughts you have related to the above mentioned questions would be of great appreciation!

Answer

In terms of generating ideas, I would recommend that you read this previous Q&A post on Idea Generation on the NVL site.
 
When researching an industry, I would recommend using our Venture Analysis tool on the NVL site.  We cover these topics within the Venture Analysis process, but be sure to do a deep dive on the specific industry such as the following:
  • Attend industry trade shows
  • Read industry trade journals
  • Read through all the information freely available on the industry trade group websites
  • Sign up for a Google alert using key words for your target industry for general news and to try to spot trends
  • Read Wall Street analyst reports on the industry and on the major companies in the industry (you can start withYahoo! Finance or Google Finance and then go deeper from there)
  • Look for investment activity in the industry by venture capital firms and private equity firms (Google alerts should help you cover this, but there are plenty of venture news and private equity industry news sources as well)
  • Look for mergers and acquisitions announcements and activity and look at the value of the companies that are being acquired to get a sense for the value of companies in the industry
In terms of your question on whether or not you are being too restrictive when you plan on just targeting one industry, I would say if the industry dynamics are really attractive (see Section 1 of the Venture Analysis), then there is not problem focusing on just one industry, because if you that God is calling you to that industry and you are targeting a very large industry that has favorable trends, unmet needs, etc. then there is no need to dilute your entrepreneurial efforts by trying to investigate another industry.

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