How to spot an opportunity no one else sees

opportunity
Businessman looking for opportunities concept. Marketing specialist with compass seek business opportunities.

If it seems the world is lacking in opportunity, it’s time to clean your glasses and check again. In a competitive business world, an individual’s advantage is understanding that the best opportunities are often the less obvious.

People need to look for opportunities in different places, or better yet, stop waiting for them to happen and create your own instead. It is about shifting your perspective – every situation, circumstance, person or event holds some kind of potential, you just need to open your eyes and see it.

My top tips on spotting an opportunity no one else sees and turning it into a success are as follows:

1. Observe your pain points and identify gaps in the market

It’s difficult to compete in oversaturated industries, if you are offering a product or service that everyone has. There are big opportunities when you look for gaps in the market and focus on providing consumers what is missing. This can come from feedback or reviews, research, trends or even personal experiences you’ve had with a product or service. While I was living in the U.S, I fell in love with online shopping and noticed how hungry people were for online deals – I used deal websites every day to save on shopping. I noticed only couple of similar services in the Australian market and I knew it would be the perfect place and time to launch a bargain website.

2. Notice demand imbalances and competitors

It’s always useful to investigate, research and get familiar with the industry. The more you know, the better decisions you’ll be able to make and the more opportunities you will recognise. Are there any interesting industry trends? Find out what services competitors are offering and think of anything you can add to that – it can even be as simple as lowering prices to make products and services more accessible and bring in more revenue! it can even be as simple as offering extra discounts to make products and services more accessible and bring in more revenue!

3. You can’t spell “opportunity” without “unity”

There is strength in numbers, and you can build success by joining forces and partnering with different companies and industries to benefit your company. Make contacts and good connections in various fields so you have a strong team of people behind you. Consider going to networking events to get your business out there and open yourself to more possibilities. When I started out, I went to many events and symposiums, which created a pool of new clients and connections. We went all the way to America for an event, which helped learn newer trends to stay in the game

4. Doubts weigh opportunities down

If you have a business, company or product that you believe in, it’s important to give it all of your attention. Sometimes having backup plans with other work or keeping the business on the side can stop it from growing to its full potential. I got to a point where I needed to decide whether to focus on permanent work or on building my business. I saw many businesses and websites fail because they either didn’t believe in their brand or had no tenacity, which prompted me to build my business full-time. Although it took a lot of perseverance, patience, hard work, support and errors, I ultimately bet on myself and turned opportunity into success.

Katt Srinivasan, Founder, SneakQIK.com