Tamika, a young entrepreneur, has been purpose-driven toward social change in their rural community. They have created solutions for pesticide runoff, erosion problems, and toxic well water. Tamika has decided to focus more on energy conservation and local air quality. Their first client is interested in wind as a power source. Tamika is unfamiliar with wind power and needs to learn about innovative solutions for residential application. How might Tamika use creative problem solving methods to develop solutions for the client’s request?
Answers
As you’ve learned, entrepreneurs often visualize an opportunity gap, a gap between what exists and what could exist, as Hirabayashi and Lidey did with Shine. Entrepreneurial problem solving is the process of using innovation and creative solutions to close that gap by resolving societal, business, or technological problems. Sometimes, personal problems can lead to entrepreneurial opportunities if validated in the market. The entrepreneur visualizes the prospect of filling the gap with an innovative solution that might entail the revision of a product or the creation of an entirely new product. In any case, the entrepreneur approaches the problem-solving process in various ways. This chapter is more about problem solving as it pertains to the entrepreneur’s thought process and approach rather than on problem solving in the sense of opportunity recognition and filling those gaps with new products.