Identifying the greatest opportunities

Social impact opportunities become real when you have a solution that leverages your advantages to solve an important problem for a specific under-served population.  Take action on your real social impact by defining the problem, creating a competitive solution, building your advantage and forming the right team.

To determine if the problem is real, ask yourself these questions:

-          Who is the under-served population you wish to target?

-          Why do they need your solution?

-          What benefits will they gain?

-          Can they make or save time or money with your product?

-          How many people experience these problems now? And in the future?

-          How many buyers or users are there?

-          Are there enough people who care about the problem for your solution to be successful?

-          Does your solution create value? What kind of value?

To answer these questions, discuss your ideas and solutions with the under-served population segment very early in the development process, even before making a prototype. These people will give you insight on features, values and price.

Do you have a real advantage?  Consider the degree of the advantage and its sustainability. Degree of advantage means better features and functions, lower prices for its value, and rareness in the marketplace.  Sustainability of advantage is how difficult is it for a competitor to copy or exceed complementary assets (resources, expertise and relationships) and the likelihood they will surpass your solution.

While building your team, consider their motivations, level of commitment, their awareness of risk and reward and the skills, abilities and knowledge do they possess. What is their education and experience? How is their reputation and accomplishments?  Be sure to plan how and when to build the team, consider the timing and schedules required by your strategic plan.