Why are we not seeing a lot of opportunities for new products? You are talking about "Pain points", what pain points? All most all we want today is already invented by West, there is nothing more to do? What innovation can we do? For every issue I see there is already a solution.
Are we missing something?
Yes, as I said earlier we continue to do things the way we did before. We continue to think the way we did before. Neither thinking nor doing has changed. We are stuck. Unless we change ourselves it is not easy to see the opportunities. The moment you get out of that jail which we have created for ourselves, we will be able to see hundreds of opportunities around.
This is the idea that lead me to create the Kerala startups group. I want to support all people who wants to do things differently. Most of the investors I met share my thoughts in this. There is no point in saying that you are not getting investment until you show the investors something unique.
If we have no model to follow, how do we know what changes are required?
Market is our leader. Market will sets the rules. Do not look on anything else. Neither technology or education can give you this model. Technology is just a tool. You should know when to use it when not? We are looking for solutions that market loves.
What is this market? How do I know what market wants?
Market is like God, it is present everywhere but you will not know. Unlike God there are proven methods to test market. What is that?
Make a small change, put forward a small effort and then take that to the market. See how the market reacts. Does the market ignore your product? Then probably you are not doing it correctly. Yes, that is a failure, but without that failure you will never have an idea about the market. So try to do things differently. Let it fail, but you will gain by learning. You will change yourself, you will start seeing a lot more opportunities.
But a journey of an entrepreneur is costly, we may end up in points of no return. There are a lot of pitfalls through this journey. How do we guarantee minimum safety? I agree that we have to take risks, go where nobody has gone before. But unless we can retrace our steps how can we use the lessons that we learned from it for our next venture.
This is where a mentor can help you. A mentor can show you the pitfalls. Mentor can tell you how far you should go, how much you should spent. He can tell you when not to spend money.
Who are these mentors? Where can we find them?
The Mentors are those people who had walked the path that you are trying to cover. They had tried to do things that you are trying to do now. They might have failed, or failed miserably, but they are very valuable resources. Meet them and discuss about your venture periodically. You can have several mentors at the same time. Try to avoid those people who have only theoretical knowledge. What we need is people having practical knowledge, let them be zero in theory.
Then there are mentor + Angel investors. They are those people who are ready to travel in the same boat and take the same risks with you. If you can get one of them then you are lucky.
We are the basics of change, progress or development. Unless we change nothing can change. If we change that is all what is required. You do not have to look at any external things like Govt. or political parties. Nothing except us.
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