Question

Everyone has a great idea, at least they think that their ideas are great!

How does a great idea differ from a great opportunity? Explain.

Answer 1

Great Ideas can often lead to exploiting or making most of Great Opportunities. In real life, opportunities may lead to ideas or even ideas may lead to opportunities. To take advantage of an opportunity, one needs to come up with an idea. Thus, though a great idea is different from a great opportunity, it is often seen that great idea is a means for solving the problem, which if solved successfully, can be a great opportunity.

Let us begin by looking into what an idea is. An idea is a concept or thought of doing something. This idea may come naturally to a person without any context or it could be an idea to solve a problem. The Great Idea remains just an idea when it is on a drawing board without much comprehensive detail of implementing in real life. For instance, if a person has just thought of doing something, without much context in the real-life, it is an idea. We often hear people coming up with such great ideas and thoughts. However, when it remains on paper it just remains an idea.

When an idea is given some real-life context, it gradually takes the shape of an opportunity. A great idea can be turned into an opportunity by giving a real-life context to buyers in the market. When people are aware of the idea, the market could demand for such an idea which could lead to a great opportunity. This is based on the thought behind supply creates its own demand, meaning if a seller comes up with something great, buyers will start demanding it.

Great opportunity, on the other hand, is a situation which gives an individual the scope to solve a problem and reap some monetary and/or economic benefits. Great Opportunity is different from a great idea in a significant way because the great opportunity is often what the real-world needs and requires. This is based on the idea that demand creates a supply. To elaborate on this aspect, we can say that there is a high demand for a good or service, and seeing this high demand, producers come up with an idea to capture this demand from buyers.

A great opportunity is one which has already got a market demand in the economy. On the other hand, a great idea may or may not have an already existing market demand. Great Idea is basically supply-side economics, which deals with producers/suppliers of a good or service. On the other hand, great demand is demand-side economics which depends on the consumers/buyers existing in the market economy.  

• Example of a great idea: Flying Machine
• Example of a great opportunity: Battery Cars

The Great Idea if presented in a real-life context to people may turn out to be an opportunity. It is innovative, however, people in the market do not have much context about how it will be implemented and what are the benefits that it would give them.

On the other hand, the great opportunity already has got the demand, people are aware of the problem and benefits, and thus just needs an idea from a producer to make most of this opportunity and solve the problem.