How to Spot Viable Business Opportunities

With a large and boisterous population estimated at between 120-150 million, a large reserve of natural resources (oil, gas, solid minerals, etc) and an expansive untapped potential in agriculture, Nigeria is clearly a huge market, offering immense opportunities for business. There are infrastructural problems alright, but the spirit of entrepreneurship does not surrender to challenges. It is also true that many of the problems present opportunities for profitable business.

If you are wondering where these business opportunities are hidden, when there is so much lamentation about unemployment, maybe this article will help direct your searchlight. One truth: not every unemployed person has thought seriously of starting a business. If you seriously need to find good business opportunities, here's a guide.

What You Need:

• Desire and commitment: To be able to see opportunities that exist or are emerging, you must have a burning desire to start a business. It is the intensity of your desire that will open your eyes to the opportunities around you. Without a consuming passion, nothing serious can really be achieved.
• Conscious attention to the environment: To find opportunities, you must be conscious of the environment and developments occurring around you. Your antennae must be raised high up, picking signals, as it were, of important occurrences and trends. Your burning desire should ignite this consciousness.
• Focused interest: You need to define and narrow down your interest, for more effectiveness. A narrower berth sharpens your instinct on your defined areas of interest. It helps plant this interest deeply in your subconscious. That way, your goal remains on the top burner and emerging opportunities can hardly escape your attention.
• Readiness to act: Opportunities arise all the time. The problem is that we're often not ready for them and so fail to take action. When you mean business, you must put yourself in the right position to take action. Seen an advertised invitation to a business opportunity briefing in your area of interest, why not check it out by attending? If you're not impressed, you burst it and wait for something else!

The Face of Business Opportunities

A business must have good patronage to be successful. The target market will only patronise your product or service if it meets a yearning need. In looking for a business opportunity, you need to identify a need-gap and fill it. Your potential for success is dependent on this relationship between a need and the solution you offer. The more intense the need and more appropriate your solution is, the more successful your business will be. So, look for business opportunities in the daily needs, pains, difficulties and desires of the people. Find a good solution at the right price for any of these and be sure you'll soon be smiling to the bank.

The people's requirements also change over time, propelled by various factors. Your ability to see emerging trends may also be the key to a successful business. What works today may not be adequate or 'in' tomorrow. You may find your opportunity by seeing where the shifts are leading.

Drivers of Opportunity

Paying attention to the following drivers of opportunities will help you when seeking out emerging business opportunities:

Government Policy: Government remains the dominant player in our economy. Changes in government policy represent one major creator of business opportunities or the reverse. Check out some recent examples: the ban of the importation of processed fruit drinks has unleashing a new wave of local fruit juice manufacture; port concessioning set some investors up for good money. The key is to analyse policies for inherent opportunities. Better still; get to know about these policies while they're still on the fire. If you do a serious exercise today, you will identify a handful of impending policies that will generate life-changing opportunities!

Technological Changes: Watch out too for opportunities thrown up by changes in technology. Didn't many small and medium operators (mast-builders, sellers of phones and accessories, hawkers, etc) harvest a fortune from the introduction of GSM technology in Nigeria? If you missed out, the good news is that new opportunities arise all the time. Just keep scanning and remain prepared.

Natural resources: The country is rich in natural resources, some of which are yet to be exploited. They resources range from the extractive to agricultural and other endowments. While huge exploitation costs may be involved in some cases, there are areas where small businesses can play effectively.

Demographics: Analysing the population profile and emerging trends provides a good guide to business opportunities. Who wouldn't know that property development in Lagos and Abuja, for instance, will remain a profitable business for some time to come, given the rate of population growth of these cities? Think of the different segments of the population and their needs, changing tastes, emerging influences. These are pointers to where business opportunities lie.

Public utilities: The weakness of our public utilities creates a huge demand-supply gap, leaving a yawning market to be serviced. 'Pure water' production has done well as a business option because of the unmet demand for portable water. Sale of power-generating sets, inverters, UPS/stabilizers and various power devices has left many bank accounts in deep black. The failure of the public educational system has created successful entrepreneurs operating private educational institutions. More opportunities are still there, if only you look more closely.

Failures Of Existing Companies and Businesses: Each time you are dissatisfied with the product, service or any feature of existing businesses, it may be a pointer to a business idea. Sometimes, you don't need to re-invent the wheel. You may not have to create a new product or service idea. Simply improving on what is currently provided may be all you require to succeed. Look out of for what is available today that you can improve on: product enhancement, better delivery experience for customers or whatever.

What To Consider When You Weigh the Options

In evaluating the options you identify, your goal is to choose a business that inherently has good potentials of success. While the ultimate performance will depend on how well you run your business, starting on a strong footing will be important. Give careful consideration to the nature of the product or service. The following factors are important:

Consumables are products that are consumed and replaced. They offer a better guarantee of sustained demand; durable products, on the other hand, will be demanded less frequently. On a low working capital, you probably will prefer a product that moves fast and consumables will be your best bet.

Essentials are basic requirements which individuals and households purchase all the time. Food items, toiletries, clothing, etc, fall into this category. A business rooted in these goods will, on balance; stand on a stronger demand base than one that deals on luxury items. For a small beginner, these items are a safer bet.

Seasonality refers to consumption cycle which peaks at certain periods but may be flat or depressed at others. Umbrellas sell well during the rains but may not be in much demand in the dry season. Unless bundled with other product lines, such goods can create a cash flow nightmare in the 'off' season. Consider a product that keeps you in business all year round.

Where To Look

To ensure you pick up information on developments that can point you to evolving or existing opportunities, you need to make a habit of combing these sources:

• The media publications, which is print, electronic, etc. Catching the news headlines in newspapers, magazines, radio, TV, etc should be an abiding habit. The internet, which has become a huge library, is a rich source of information. Its currency, extensive coverage and extraordinary accessibility make it a choice source to use.
• Government's policy documents, official statements, budgets, publications of the Central Bank, government agencies, business groups and researchers will keep you informed of important economic and public policy thrusts.
• Opinions of experts, friends, family and public discussants can also direct attention to where things are happening.

In summary, starting a business is serious business and requires some serious work. Take some time to do some analysis based on the indicators outlined here. Chances are good that you will find an opportunity that suits you and forms a basis for your dream business.

Should I Start My Own Business?

This is my first blog and first post. I hope it will be a journey that will help you discover yourself which I think is one of the best things about starting and running your own business. You find your strengths and weaknesses, you also realise most importantly what you can do and most times you surprise yourself because you exceed your expectations.


Should I start my own business? This is a question everyone asks at some point in time or the other. It could be because you haven't been able to find a job, you are tired of your present job, you want to increase your income (make money), you want to be your own boss, and you have a fantastic idea.


The answer to any of these question should always be guided by your ultimate reason.

1.    If you haven't found a job: Your motivation will be both economic and self worth so whatever you decide should be able to fulfill both needs. Will it keep you alive and will you be proud of what you do. Pride does not mean what people think, but what you think. What are you comfortable with? You should also understand who you are. If you do not handle rejection well, making your business work will be as difficult as finding a job and the rejections will be just the same if not worse. So you should maybe change your job hunting strategy. Think of a service business something that requires little or zero capital and you get paid up front. A cleaning business, a personal shopping business for bachelors and busy mothers.

2.    You hate your current job: Your motivation should be something you enjoy doing. You should decide on something you like and have a passion for. Say for instance you love soccer so much you may decide to set up miniature leagues in several different neighborhoods and generate attendance which will generate sponsors. Or you love fashion you may decide to create an online catalogue of fashionable things you like and point them to the stores where they can get them and ask them to use a code to shop at a particular shop where you already get a commission and your clients get a discount. You need to ensure you can still earn the same income you earned while you worked.

3.    You want to increase your income (make money): This is a very popular reason why most people want to start their own business and sometimes in fact it is not that simple and straight forward and all you may be doing is own a job with probably the same income. The key is to understand your motivation. You also need to understand that there are several ways to make money without starting your own business, such as trading in shares, selling information, being a commission agent, trading in property. All these are income generating without necessarily starting a business. You also need to be very analytical and ask critical questions. How much money do I want to make? This will determine if your resources will enable you achieve your goal.

4.      You want to be your own boss: As idyllic as this sounds, you need to understand why you want to be your own boss. Is it because you have natural leadership skills or you hate taking orders from others or you are not a team player. he answer to these questions will determine whether you have what it takes to start your own business and what kind of business to start. Any client facing business automatically means your clients become your boss.

5.    You have a fantastic idea: Fantastic is relative, an idea is only really fantastic when a number of people are ready, willing and able to pay for your product or service. It is important to test your idea among several groups of people to determine how fantastic it really is. But most importantly you need to know who you are. Are you a risk taker; are you ready to risk it all? Are you tough skinned especially when it seems nothing is working? Are you adaptable, sometimes the application may dramatically change? For instance at the advent of mobile phones someone I knew imported mobile telephone signal blockers to sell to banks, since banks had a rule of not  allowing customers to make phone calls in the banking hall. It was not successful because it also blocked the bank’s staff’s mobile phones as well and so had to be turned off so they could receive calls. If he had thought the idea through and had been adaptable the same gadget could have also been sold to Universities, Schools, Churches and event places. You must always keep an open mind.

That is it for my first post. Send in your comments and questions. If you are working on any idea let me know how I can help you. Just send me an email and if you want me to call you send in your number. Calls will only be one way from me to you at a time agreed by both of us.



Please let me have feedback. Thank you.



Tokunbo Benson