How do entrepreneurs see the opportunities? How do entrepreneurs see the opportunities? What intrinsic and extrinsic factors drive them and influence the opportunity discovering and commercialization process?

Abstract

The main purpose of this thesis is to understand how entrepreneurs see the opportunities and what intrinsic and extrinsic factors influence the journey from opportunity discovery to its commercialization. Entrepreneurs and their unique stories of business creation and development stand in the center of the analysis. To answer the research question, three main conclusions have been made: 1. The key intrinsic challenge of entrepreneurs is the ability to apply and switch between the two different logics: causation and effectuation. The effectuation logic is more naturally applied on the startup stage by using the available resources at the very moment. Causal logic is more useful on the company’s growth stage. The success of entrepreneurs is depending not only on the right choice of the logic from the beginning of the idea development process, but also on the entrepreneurial ability to switch from effectuation to causation and vice versa along with company`s development. 2. Besides the intrinsic factors influencing the opportunities discovery and development process, entrepreneurs are in the constant interaction with key tangible and intangible extrinsic factors such as: uncertainty and risk, timing and relevant human resources. These factors are very often perceived by entrepreneurs differently compared to corporate managers. Entrepreneurs rely on their knowledge, experience and in many cases on their intuition in order to make sense out of the unknown and make risky decisions with an affordable loss estimates. Success is depending on the ability to persuade the relevant resources to take a chance on the opportunity. 3. The success of entrepreneurs is depending on their ability to encounter as many of these intrinsic and extrinsic factors as possible, in order to have as complete understanding of the situation as possible. But at the same time they need to be able to narrow the options down using gained experience, knowledge, effectual principles and intuition while staying true to their core individual values in live.