Fundamentals for Becoming a Successful Entrepreneur: From Business Idea to Launch and Management

3. Getting a Good Idea and Making It Work

3.0 Overview

To paraphrase the Bible, “in the beginning . . . there was an idea.” All firms, large or small, in every industrial sector, began as an idea that was nurtured by an entrepreneur. That idea comes from being attentive to an opportunity that exists or anticipating an opportunity. As one of us (Carsrud 1989:35) noted several decades ago, all ventures:

. . . had their beginnings as ideas in entrepreneur’s minds. An idea is formed from a number of variables, yet it is not a business concept until it undergoes an active decisional process, a process that has far-flung implications for the ultimate scope and success of the business venture.

3.1 The Idea

In Chapter 2 we discussed how success