An idea that sparked a venture: Start-up founders and their sources of inspiration

Tech in Asia explores how entrepreneurs find inspiration to start up

I first invested in this business, but it wasn’t doing too well so I took it over and turned it around

A well known example of this is Tony Hsieh. He was first an investor in Zappos, a promising start-up, which had issues and needed capital.
 

One day Tony Hsieh saw an opportunity to acquire enough of the company and appointed himself CEO, moving from an investor to CEO. Zappos eventually got acquired by Amazon for over $800 million.
 

I was working for somebody when…

Working for another company sometimes gives you the best business ideas because you get to see the inside of whatever industry you’re in. From there you can see problems or inefficiencies and with any problem lies a solution and hence an opportunity.
 

I heard about this company from overseas that does the same thing I do…

Many entrepreneurs I know don’t bother reinventing the wheel. They just look at business models that work elsewhere overseas. The benefit is that you can learn from their mistakes and figure out how to improve from there.
 

I was at a trade show when I saw this…

Every industry generally has a trade show or conference that displays all the relevant products in its category. 
 

I was at a conference and I saw this…
Conferences are excellent places to learn about an industry and explore opportunities. 

This is sourced from Tech in Asia. You can access the article here.